Some of Our Most Exciting Picks Ever

Breakthrough in progress... Mixed signals in the jobs market... UPS's no-good year... Tech layoffs are piling up... Goodbye to the moonshots... Cost cutting can be good for shareholders... Mr. Market remains optimistic...

Last night, while the world slept...

The breakthrough investing tool that we've been talking about here for the past week or so, arguably the biggest breakthrough in the 25-year history of Stansberry Research... well, it went to work.

It analyzed thousands of stocks, using metrics and measurements our team values. From there, it looked at 161 trillion potential investment portfolios – with the idea of finding just one set of stocks that maximized returns and limited risk just the way we wanted...

In other words, as we put it yesterday, it landed a plane on the Hudson River after hitting a flock of birds.

Of the hundreds of investment recommendations we've made since 1999, this new set of stock picks, just released to Stansberry Alliance members and paid subscribers of this new stock-picking offering, is among our most exciting ever.

I (Corey McLaughlin) can't give away the details, but our team just published an update to a strategy that has beaten the benchmark S&P 500 Index by 10-fold since it went live behind the scenes at the company...

Normally, you'd need access to a pricey hedge fund to get this kind of research.

But we're making it available to anyone interested, at a fraction of what a Wall Street firm might want... and after years and millions of dollars of work to fine-tune everything. Click here for all the details and learn how to get access today.

Moving on, let's talk about the jobs market...

While the official data from Uncle Sam continues to show a relatively strong labor market –the number of available jobs rose past 9 million in December, the government reported today – I can't help but notice the reports of layoffs I've been seeing lately...

The latest one that came across my desk today was global shipping giant United Parcel Service (UPS). During its quarterly earnings call, UPS said it plans to cut 12,000 jobs and $1 billion in costs as it deals with a "difficult and disappointing year" amid declining volume, revenue, and profit.

UPS shares fell 8% on all that not-so-rosy news. But there's more to say than just the movement about its share price...

The performance of a company like UPS is often emblematic of the economy in general. That's due to its business of shipping all kinds of things around the U.S. and the world... the number of sectors it touches... and the fact that it has to deal with the realities of the economy like everyone else.

That's why I find this example so telling. Recall that six months ago, UPS reached an agreement with its employees' labor union to pay drivers $170,000 a year – because, you know, inflation. Now, it's cutting 12,000 jobs because everything is more expensive while demand for UPS's services is down and the company doesn't expect the trend to turn around until the second half of this year.

Take note.

After the Federal Reserve meeting wraps up tomorrow, we'll be watching for the next big jobs report from Uncle Sam. That's the "nonfarm payrolls" numbers for January, which come out Friday morning and will include an updated national unemployment rate.

What's happening in tech...

According to the free resource layoffs.fyi – a tool created by a startup founder that tracks tech layoffs when reports are available – 98 tech companies have let go 25,136 employees in January alone.

If that sounds like a lot to you, you're right...

At the current pace of layoffs (again, this is only the tech industry but worldwide), that would mean more than 300,000 layoffs by the end of the year. This would surpass the roughly 263,000 tech jobs eliminated in 2023... and 165,000 in 2022.

Looking a little deeper at the data, most of the employees who have lost jobs worked at retail or consumer-facing businesses. For example, online furniture seller Wayfair (W) laid off 1,650 people, or 13% of its workforce, on January 19.

The magnificent are not immune...

Microsoft (MSFT), one of the high-flying "Magnificent Six" stocks, announced just last week it is letting 1,900 employees go. (Remember that I no longer count Tesla among the "magnificent" stocks, since its shares are down about 23% for the year.) Microsoft's layoffs are mainly connected to its acquisition of gaming company Activision Blizzard.

Yet fellow Magnificent Six name Alphabet (GOOGL) also cut at least 1,000 jobs across multiple divisions earlier this month.

Plus, Alphabet is reportedly shutting down its "moonshot lab" – called X – as part of a broader cost-efficiency push, Bloomberg reported last week.

This division (not to be confused with the social media service formerly known as Twitter) was started by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 2010. It was essentially an idea sandbox and proving ground for "far-out, sci-fi sounding technologies" – like self-driving cars, its Google Glass glasses, self-flying drones, and crop-harvesting robots.

For more than a decade, Alphabet funded these projects using its own resources, even if it meant losses should they never hit the mainstream because the possible returns would be worth it. Now, the company is reportedly looking for outside investors to fund these kinds of projects, like any other venture-capital firm might do.

The risk, evidently, isn't worth the reward anymore. The belts are being pulled tighter. Reports of layoffs in other areas of Alphabet have also been coming out of Silicon Valley in dribs and drabs.

All that said, this cost-cutting strategy doesn't appear to be scaring investors away. Just the opposite... they see layoffs and reductions in high-risk costs as great news for the bottom line right now. Alphabet shares are up 10% since the start of the year in the face of any economic headwinds the company is feeling.

Mr. Market keeps on feeling generally optimistic as well. Today was a "mixed" day for the indexes – the Dow Jones Industrial Average was slightly higher, the S&P 500 was flat, while the Nasdaq Composite Index and Russell 2000 Index each dropped about 0.8% – and volatility was muted.

New 52-week highs (as of 1/29/24): Autodesk (ADSK), Amazon (AMZN), ASML (ASML), AutoZone (AZO), Ciena (CIEN), Salesforce (CRM), Commvault Systems (CVLT), Comfort Systems USA (FIX), Alphabet (GOOGL), W.W. Grainger (GWW), Ingersoll Rand (IR), Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Eli Lily (LLY), Microsoft (MSFT), Neuberger Berman Next Generation Connectivity Fund (NBXG), Novo Nordisk (NVO), Parker-Hannifin (PH), ProShares Ultra QQQ (QLD), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN), Construction Partners (ROAD), Roper Technologies (ROP), SentinelOne (S), S&P Global (SPGI), Spotify Technology (SPOT), SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 Value Fund (SPYV), ProShares Ultra S&P 500 (SSO), Trane Technologies (TT), ProShares Ultra Financials (UYG), Visa (V), and Vanguard S&P 500 Fund (VOO).

"The thoughts in the daily Digest are as important to me as coffee. It would be, I think, a nice touch to offer the feature in audio." – Subscriber E.J.

Corey McLaughlin comment: First off, as someone who needs daily coffee these days, I appreciate your analogy and sentiments...

While you can't "listen" to our e-mail version, paid subscribers can listen to the Digest – and our other publications – while logged into StansberryResearch.com. Visit our Digest section and navigate to the issue you'd like to hear.

You'll find a button beneath the headline that says "Listen to this article." The technology works extremely well, and you can increase the playback speed if you're in a rush or like to do that kind of thing.

All the best,

Corey McLaughlin
Baltimore, Maryland
January 30, 2024