Part II of Our 2025 Report Card
Sharing the next part of our annual Report Card... Controversial grades... Our grading criteria... Reviewing our big-picture newsletters...
Our annual Report Card is often the most controversial Digest we write each year...
This year didn't disappoint.
Subscriber Alex K. wrote in, "Is this the new grading scale where everyone passes?"
Harsh.
And Steve D. wrote, "Oh well. Keep the grades high. Book some more business."
Ouch!
Today, I (Stansberry Research Publisher Matt Weinschenk) am continuing with the second installment of our annual Report card. I started last week by reviewing our Portfolio Solutions products.
A few subscribers, like Alex and Steve, wrote in to say I was too easy on The Quant Portfolio and Stansberry's Forever Portfolio. I gave them both C grades for 2025, even though they trailed their benchmarks. (No one disputed the A+ The Total Portfolio earned for 2025.)
You might be surprised to learn that I welcome messages like Alex's and Steve's.
Actually... I love them. They let me know I'm doing my job.
We've been doing our Report Card for 20 years now. The purpose is to hold ourselves accountable and provide you with transparency on how our services have done.
We take this seriously at Stansberry Research. We're thrilled with the outstanding success of many of our services. And if we're not performing up to par, you deserve to know it.
But to me, the letter grades I give each service are the least important part of the Report Card.
Yes, the grades get all the attention. And yes, the editors who take home A's and A+'s enjoy some bragging rights around the office.
But what's far more important, we give you the critical numbers we use in evaluating our performance.
Stansberry Research's guiding principle since our founding has been to provide you, our subscriber, with all the information we'd want if our roles were reversed.
The Report Card honors that promise.
We give you the average return for all the services' recommendations... the annualized return for those picks... the win rate... and a relevant benchmark.
Now, to be clear, I stand by my judgments.
As I explained in last week's Digest, The Quant Portfolio and Stansberry's Forever Portfolio focus on quality stocks. Specifically, they hold stocks with high profit margins, free cash flows, and other fundamental measures.
And unfortunately, in 2025, high-quality stocks trailed low-quality stocks. A study by investment bank UBS shows that since March, low-quality stocks have beaten high-quality stocks by 50 percentage points.
Considering the market refused to offer them any opportunities, I think the Forever Portfolio and Quant Portfolio did just fine.
And I don't want these portfolios to stray from quality stocks. I would have judged them more harshly if they had strayed from their mandates.
Can you imagine something called Stansberry's Forever Portfolio deciding it needed to add a meme stock?
So these portfolios earned C grades because they did what they were supposed to do. And if they keep doing it, I wholeheartedly believe things will work out.
Again, the grades are entirely mine. I hope you agree with my judgments. But in the end, if you read my explanation... look at the numbers... and decide I've gone soft... that's OK. Disagree. Roast me. I want to hear all about it. Let me know at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
This is all about full track-record transparency. I'm grateful for subscribers like Alex and Steve who take the time to dig into the data and form their own judgments.
Today, I'm reviewing our big-picture newsletters...
These newsletters cover big topics, big stocks, and they generally welcome a wide range of investors looking for well-researched financial information.
We tend to offer these newsletters at affordable prices – prices much lower than their quality would suggest – so they're accessible to anyone ready to improve their investment returns.
I have to say, I was a bit surprised by the results. At Stansberry Research, we don't chase wild gains. We tend to be careful. Measured.
I fully admit our portfolios run the risk of overlooking the hottest stocks in the market because these stocks tend to be the most overvalued and risky.
So in a galloping bull market like this – one rewarding businesses with promises of future growth and less in the way of fundamentals – I thought we'd be left behind.
In most cases, we were not.
The numbers look especially good when you take a long-term view, which is how you build real wealth. But again, you can judge for yourself.
Unlike the portfolios I reviewed last week, these are not fully allocated portfolios. As such, they don't have annual returns that perfectly map onto their benchmarks. But over 20 years, we've developed what we believe is the best way to grade these portfolios.
Here's how it works...
Our Grading Criteria for Traditional Publications
Before you get started, I encourage you to read this explanation of the criteria we use...
It will help you understand what we're looking for from our analysts and editors. It should also help you understand the high standards that we set for all our publications. As I said, the grades are mine – no one else's. I generally provide context to support my decisions. But there's no fudging... no excuses... and no hiding from the results.
First, we aim for complete accuracy...
This involves tracking the exact entry and exit points. Please keep in mind... we're tracking our results (not yours, which is impossible for us to do). We're not saying these results represent the exact prices at which you could have gotten into or out of an investment. Rather, they represent the value of our insights at the time we publish our material. We use the closing price from the day prior to publication for our entry price... and for our exit price, we use the closing price from the day after we recommend closing the position or hit our stop loss.
Next, we evaluate each publication's performance by focusing on three key metrics...
The most important metric for us is the win rate. Our traditional newsletters make regular recommendations – in most cases, each month. Their model portfolios are essentially a list of recommendations – not an actual portfolio where you invest in an entire pool of risk-weighted securities. We can't know if subscribers act on every recommendation or try to cherry-pick the ideas they think will work out best. In most cases, we bet that it's the latter.
That makes the editor's ability to pick more winners than losers an important criterion. This tells subscribers the likelihood that an editor's picks will end up profitable. When you follow an editor with a high win rate, you should stick with them.
Next are the average and annualized returns...
We compare how each recommendation (not the entire list of recommendations at once) performs against its benchmark over its exact holding period. (That benchmark is the S&P 500 Index, unless otherwise noted.) This is perhaps the most confusing metric for subscribers to understand. But we think it's the most accurate way to compare results. Since we're making recommendations throughout the evaluation period, we can't compare the newsletters with the S&P 500 over the full period... Not all recommendations were made at the start date.
Likewise, we don't close all our positions at the same time. That's why you will see a different number for the benchmark on most publications rather than a flat rate of return for the evaluation period. By looking at the average gains for a publication, you can determine what kind of returns to expect from following that editor's recommendations.
In investing, annualized returns show what would happen if you were to repeat a trade's performance (up or down) throughout the year. This allows us to compare different strategies over different periods.
For these newsletters, I'm going to share the performance over one year and five years. And since these newsletters tend to have longer-term investment horizons, I'm going to grade them based on five-year returns.
So let's get started...
Stansberry's Investment Advisory: B
It was a great year for Whitney Tilson and the Stansberry's Investment Advisory team. Of the 12 picks made in 2025, seven have been winners, for an average annualized gain of 33.8%... compared with 24.9% for the benchmark S&P 500 Index.
Over the five-year period, Stansberry's Investment Advisory had a positive win rate at 56% and only slightly underperformed its benchmark.
But I believe the Investment Advisory carries significantly less risk than the S&P 500.
You see, the Investment Advisory model portfolio holds many insurance companies, which we believe are the "best businesses in the world." They aren't fast-moving stocks, but over time, they reward you. For example, Investment Advisory holdings W.R. Berkley (WRB) and American Financial (AFG) are up 623% and 483%, respectively.
The portfolio also has high-quality, best-of-the-best stocks (which it labels "Global Elite Businesses") like Coca-Cola Consolidated (COKE) and McDonald's (MCD).
Now, our grading scale works on what we call "vintages." Each year measures the positions open in that year. These positions are tracked until they close.
So the Investment Advisory's five-year returns are being dragged down by 2022's picks – mainly two large losses in the semiconductor sector. The model portfolio stopped out of Applied Materials (AMAT) and Intel (INTC) for losses of 45% and 38%, respectively.
The team was onto something with semiconductor stocks. But they were early.
It's also worth noting that our methodology doesn't give credit for stocks recommended before 2021 that the portfolio still holds. And there are a lot of them.
For example, gold producer Barrick Mining (B) is up 114% since the team recommended it. In 2025 alone, it went up 181%.
CBOE Global Markets (CBOE), the leading U.S. options exchange, is up 215% since its initial recommendation and 189% over the five years ending in 2025... Credit-card company American Express (AXP) is up 492% since its initial recommendation and 225% over the past five years... And software giant Microsoft (MSFT) is up 1,550% since its initial recommendation and 126% over the past five years.
The five-year track record, as calculated, gets no credit for those returns.
If you add it all up, since inception an incredible 27 years ago, Stansberry's Investment Advisory has beaten its benchmark by 3.2% per year. That's a rate and time period I believe to be unmatched in the industry. That's why it earns a B for this year's Report Card.
True Wealth: B
In many ways, True Wealth runs counter to Stansberry's Investment Advisory.
Editor Brett Eversole focuses on big trends. He looks from the "top down" to find the countries, sectors, and currencies set to move.
Brett will readily tell you he doesn't spend his time trying to evaluate the financials or science behind a single biotechnology company. Instead, he looks for when biotechnology stocks as a whole should get their due. That's why he recommended the iShares Biotechnology Fund (IBB) in September. It's already up 21%.
If you isolate True Wealth's recent performance, Brett has been killing it.
In 2024, Brett made 13 recommendations. Ten are up, for an annualized gain of 31%, versus 15% for the benchmark S&P 500.
In 2025, Brett did even better. He recommended 13 plays, with nine winners. They returned 43% annualized gains versus 16% for the benchmark.
But Brett still has to work through tough 2022 and 2023 returns, when markets whipsawed and made it tough on trend followers. With a 58% win rate and annualized returns just slightly below the benchmark over the past five years, True Wealth earns a B.
Commodity Supercycles: A+
Commodity Supercycles, led by Whitney Tilson along with Brian Tycangco and Bill McGilton, aims to do what it says in the name: capture huge gains when commodities go on their inevitable tear higher.
That's happening right now.
The AI boom has rewarded energy and commodity investors. And Whitney and the team have been there to capitalize on it.
The Commodity Supercycles model portfolio includes nuclear stocks like BWX Technologies (BWXT) and Vistra (VST), up 139% and 82%, respectively.
It also has renewable plays like GE Vernova (GEV), up 99%, and Ormat Technologies (ORA), up 83%... traditional oil-rights picks like Viper Energy (VNOM), up 180%, and Black Stone Minerals (BSM), up 116%... and pipeline companies like Kinder Morgan (KMI), which is up 96%.
Those were all added to the portfolio within the last five years.
And then, of course, there are the metals. What a time it has been for metals.
Copper play Ero Copper (ERO) is up 154% since September. Kinross Gold (KGC) is up 341%. And the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV) is up 335%.
I could go on.
Commodity Supercycles demonstrates so much of the value of Stansberry Research.
We've published it for 21 years, through good commodity markets and bad... with real experts who focus on the industry and know its ins, outs, and opportunities.
So when commodities catch fire, we're already in place. You know you can come to a trusted source to get the best research.
With a win rate of 66% and sextuple the annualized returns of its benchmark Bloomberg Commodity Index over the past five years, Commodity Supercycles earns a well-deserved A+.
Stansberry Innovations Report: C
Stansberry Innovations Report is designed to capture growth... to find the best technology innovations and the right way to play them in the market.
It's hard to complain about the returns editors Eric Wade and John Engel have made on their stock positions (that is to say, not including those from the "Crypto Corner" feature).
They've been all over some of the big trends in tech and have seen returns like 505% on Ciena (CIEN) and 297% on Lumentum (LITE), both companies that make fiber-optic networking equipment. They posted a 365% gain on music streamer Spotify Technology (SPOT), even adjusting for taking profits on half the position. And they're up 121% on Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL).
Over the past five years, the Innovations Report model portfolio had average gains of 25% and 16.8% annualized.
However, when your sector is the hot one, you have to perform. And while the Innovations Report has informed readers and put them into some big hits, it just about matched the benchmark S&P 500. That's why the Innovations Report earns a C this year.
There's a thin line between average and exceptional. With just one more Spotify or Ciena, the Innovations Report could jump up a letter grade or two.
If we look at the Innovations Report since its inception in 2018, we see a clear A-level publication. The average gain of 47.5% outpaces the 38.2% earned by the S&P 500 by nearly double digits.
The Innovations Report also includes several crypto recommendations, which we look at separately due to their volatility. Here, Eric mainly sticks to the big "blue chip" cryptos that are easy to buy and hold for a long time.
The five-year time period hit the crypto portfolio hard. While the model portfolio is up more than 750% on bitcoin and more than 1,000% on Ethereum, both of these fall outside the five-year window of analysis.
Instead, smaller cryptos like Polygon and VeChainThor have declined from their 2021 highs. For positions recommended within the last five years, the average gain is only 1%.
Retirement Millionaire: B
Written by Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig and his team, Retirement Millionaire aims to set its readers up for a healthy and wealthy retirement.
We don't want big risks. We want steady, safe gains over time to build a massive nest egg.
Doc also shares his ideas on healthy living. It's impossible to measure this advice with numbers. But Doc has often shared insights that become the proven opinion of the medical community years later. For example, he was ahead of the curve warning about the threats of persistent inflammation.
Over the past five years, Doc has underperformed his benchmark, the S&P 500. I personally think that benchmark is a little aggressive for Doc's conservative style, so I give some extra grace here. But Doc loves a challenge.
What's striking is his win rate. In a game where a 55% win rate can make you rich, 63% of Doc's picks over the last five years have made money.
Doc's track record suffers from the same measurement challenge as Stansberry's Investment Advisory.
Retirement Millionaire has lots of positions opened before our five-year window that are still earning outstanding gains for readers. For example, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) is up 769%... Microsoft is up 1,408%... Alphabet is up 721%... banking giant JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is up 298%... and e-commerce behemoth Amazon (AMZN) is up 407%.
If you look at Retirement Millionaire since its inception in 2008, the model portfolio has posted an average return of 64.7%, versus 71.3% for the S&P 500. But Doc only selected safe, conservative stocks.
What's more shocking... Doc boasts a win percentage of 72%. His winners outnumber his losers by 2.5-to-1.
And in the 18-year history of Retirement Millionaire, there's only one "vintage" that has lost money (2021).
If you want to earn real money over the long term, Retirement Millionaire is the best in the business.
The Ferris Report: D
Dan Ferris is here to protect you from disaster.
Dan doesn't like to be described as bearish. He's an optimistic person. He sees opportunities in the market.
But as an investor, Dan knows that someday the markets will stop delivering pleasure and start delivering pain.
Unfortunately for The Ferris Report, which we launched in 2022, the market has only delivered pleasure over the past few years.
With average gains near 20%, Dan has lagged the benchmark S&P 500 since inception, which is a short of five years.
However, he has a 64% win rate. And were it not for two relatively quick losses in 2022 and 2025 – on Smith & Wesson (SWBI) and Tempus AI (TEM) – Dan would have done a lot better. Still, losses are losses.
However...
Dan is a bear market investor who has not had the "luck" to invest through a bear market yet.
And average gains near 20% are a great way to grow your wealth. It's just that the market is so hot, Dan has missed some opportunities.
He's doing that on purpose, though...
If you recall a few years ago, the hottest fund in the market was Cathie Wood's high-flying ARK Innovation Fund (ARKK), which bought every overvalued tech stock with little concern for risk management.
When the tech stock market collapsed in 2021, a chart started circulating comparing ARKK's returns to Berkshire Hathaway's...
I believe Dan's risk management will prove out over time.
You'll see that when we review his Extreme Value service in the next part of our Report Card. Dan has published that since 2002. So it has had the benefit of proving Dan's prowess "through the cycle." Multiple cycles, in fact. I won't spoil the grade, but... it's good.
For now, we'll settle on a D for The Ferris Report. But if a bear market comes, the work Dan has done over the past four years will prove valuable.
A note about The N.E.W. System...
In September, we launched the New Engine of Wealth (N.E.W.) System to make AI work for you.
Each quarter, this system uses an AI algorithm to build a portfolio of high-quality stocks with the goal of long-term outperformance of the market.
We don't have enough data to judge it yet. But it will get a grade for its first year in next year's annual Report Card.
I'll be back next week to grade our more advanced services with the final part of this year's Report Card.
New 52-week highs (as of 1/29/26): ABB (ABBNY), Applied Materials (AMAT), ASML (ASML), Atmus Filtration Technologies (ATMU), BHP (BHP), BP (BP), Chevron (CVX), iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy Fund (DBMF), Donaldson (DCI), EnerSys (ENS), Ero Copper (ERO), Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), Comfort Systems USA (FIX), Franklin FTSE Japan Fund (FLJP), Freehold Royalties (FRU.TO), Cambria Foreign Shareholder Yield Fund (FYLD), SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), Alphabet (GOOGL), Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE), Helmerich & Payne (HP), Hubbell (HUBB), Kinder Morgan (KMI), Lincoln Electric (LECO), Lockheed Martin (LMT), Mueller Industries (MLI), New York Times (NYT), Ormat Technologies (ORA), Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS), Invesco Oil & Gas Services Fund (PXJ), Roche (RHHBY), SandRidge Energy (SD), Tenaris (TS), Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (U-U.TO), ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL), Vale (VALE), State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE), and ExxonMobil (XOM).
In today's mailbag, feedback on Dan Ferris' Digest yesterday, which discussed the recent run-up in silver... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
"Dan, I'm with you. I don't often thank you and Corey enough. Thanks for all your efforts on our behalf.
"Yes, I have a problem! I followed Stansberry's analysts' recommendations for SLV and GLD, AND numerous royalty and mining companies. Gold and silver in those forms now are more than 15% of my portfolio. I took some profits on SLV and now reading today's Digest will widen my trailing stop. It's crazy times. I thank you for your sanity. And hosting Investor Hour." – Stansberry Alliance member Jeffrey G.
Good investing,
Matt Weinschenk
Publisher
Baltimore, Maryland
January 30, 2026