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The robots are out to get you.

Human investment advisers have a long history of self-interested decision-making. They might make an unnecessary flurry of trades to collect more commissions... or collect steep management fees for merely buying the S&P 500 Index.

The robots were supposed to change all that. And no, I don't mean big, clunking machines that motor along behind you when you visit the bank. I'm talking about the "robo-advisors" that began popping up as the smartphone revolution kicked off in the late 2000s.

Robo-advisors are algorithms designed to allocate money among different asset classes like stocks, bonds, and cash... They offer a simple, low-cost, set-it-and-forget-it way to invest. And investors have responded.

As recently as 2017, robo-advisors had $1.1 billion worth of assets under management. As of last year, that figure rose to $1.8 trillion.

The idea is that they can make investors the most money possible, accounting for risk, without the expense (for either a financial institution or a client) of paying a human for this expertise. But the robots aren't always as benevolent as you might expect...

Consider the robo-advisor called Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, which the broker Charles Schwab launched in 2015.

Investor cash poured in. And Schwab's robots would lend it out to an affiliated bank, collect interest, and pay just a portion of that interest back to the clients... all while telling the clients that the Intelligent Portfolios were getting them the best possible deal.

The difference between the two interest rates – what Schwab received for lending out clients' money and what clients actually received from Schwab – was the robots' secret profit.

Turns out, even robots aren't above the law. A few years ago, Schwab had to pay $187 million to settle a lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") over its robo-advisors' underhanded dealings.

From an SEC statement...

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged three Charles Schwab investment adviser subsidiaries for not disclosing that they were allocating client funds in a manner that their own internal analyses showed would be less profitable for their clients under most market conditions.

Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC's enforcement division, called Schwab's conduct "egregious."

I get why folks would want to trust their investing to robots...

Deciding what to invest in and figuring out proper asset allocation can seem boring and complex (though it doesn't need to be). And teaching you the right way to do it doesn't make Wall Street any money... That's why you don't hear much about it.

But it's the most important factor in your retirement-investing success.

I've written many times about the benefits of asset allocation. Distribute your portfolio among different asset classes – stocks, fixed income, cash, and chaos hedges (like precious metals). Keeping your wealth stored in a diversified mix of investable assets is the key to avoiding catastrophic losses.

You also need to consider something called correlation...

Correlation is a statistic that measures the degree to which two stocks, or sectors, move in relation to one another.

Positive correlation means the two assets move in the same direction together. For instance, when the price of fuel increases, so do the prices of airline tickets. Negative correlation means the assets move in opposite directions. For example, if stocks fall, gold tends to rise. (You can use online calculators like this one to easily find correlation.)

A good way to protect your portfolio is by making sure all your assets aren't positively correlated – and therefore won't drop in tandem should hard times hit.

Of course, too many folks will ignore all this advice and still load up their portfolio with the "next big thing." I'm sure plenty of people did this when it looked like Nvidia was unstoppable.

The truth is, no matter how compelling a single stock might be, it's never going to be a smart idea to put all of your money into it. That's a crazy risk to take.

Even putting 10% or 20% of your portfolio into any one stock is a huge gamble, because if something goes wrong – like we've seen this week – you'll watch a big chunk of your net worth go up in smoke.

To really grow and compound your money over time, your total portfolio needs to make sense. It needs to be more than the sum of its parts.

The problem is, the entire financial-publishing industry tends to spend way too much time focusing on individual stocks... and nowhere near enough time on overall portfolio construction.

We're an industry obsessed with ingredients, not recipes.

But, last week, I went on camera to explain why that doesn't have to be a problem for you... We've put together one perfectly balanced, fully diversified portfolio built to grow in any market condition imaginable.

And if the track record we've seen so far is anything to go by, you could more than double what your current portfolio is earning.

This is Stansberry Research's most important recommendation.

Watch me explain it all here now.

What We're Reading...

Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,

Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
July 14, 2025

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Here at Health & Wealth Bulletin, our manifesto is to provide a guide for living well – at a good price and on your own terms.

We've told folks the secret to life-changing income in retirement, the exit plan that every investor needs, and the key to beating the market. And our team has been on the leading edge of reporting new discoveries like immunotherapy, the dangers of BPA, the truth about cholesterol, and more.

You see, huge corporate interests and corrupt government institutions would rather people didn't know about many of these concepts... The more ignorant the people are, the better for the government and corporate interests. This keeps folks dependent... and the "nanny state" alive. That's why we spend our days uncovering the truth and sharing it with readers.

Health & Wealth Bulletin is your free guidebook to intriguing health and wealth ideas. It's all about living the best life possible.

About the Editor
Dr. David Eifrig
Dr. David Eifrig
Editor

Dr. Eifrig has one of the most remarkable resumes of anyone we know in this industry. After receiving his BA from the Carleton College in Minnesota, he went on to earn an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, graduating on the Dean’s List with a double major in finance and international business.

From there, Dr. Eifrig went to work as an elite derivatives trader at the investment bank Goldman Sachs. He spent a decade on Wall Street with several major institutions, including Chase Manhattan and Yamaichi (then known as the “Goldman Sachs of Japan”).

That’s when Dr. Eifrig’s career took an unconventional turn. Sick of the greed and hypocrisy of Wall Street... he quit his senior vice president position to become a doctor. He graduated from Columbia University’s post-baccalaureate pre-medicine program and eventually earned his MD with clinical honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at med school, he was elected president of his class and admitted to the Order of the Golden Fleece (considered the highest honor given at UNC-Chapel Hill).

Dr. Eifrig also completed a research fellowship in molecular genetics at Duke University and became a board-eligible eye surgeon. Along the way, he has been published in scientific journals and helped start a small biotech company, Mirus, that was sold to Roche for $125 million in 2008.

However, frustrated by Big Medicine’s many conflicts, Dr. Eifrig began to look for ways he could talk directly with individuals and use his background to show them how to take control of their health and wealth. In 2008, he joined Stansberry Research and launched his publication, Retirement Millionaire. He has gone on to launch Retirement Trader, which uses options to help people construct safe, reliable income streams, and Income Intelligence, the most comprehensive monthly review we know of the universe of income investments.

He is also the author of five books with four-star ratings (or better) on Amazon. In his spare time, he has run three marathons and several triathlons. He also owns and produces his own wine (Eifrig Cellars) in northern Sonoma County, California.

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