The Atlas 400 at Opus One...

 Sean Goldsmith just called me from California's Napa Valley. He's there with The Atlas 400, a private wealth club that brings together an elite group of entrepreneurs who travel the world and share business and investing ideas.

The Atlas 400 had just left the Opus One Winery in Oakville when Sean called me. He says the place was packed with Asian buyers scooping up cases of Opus One to ship back home.

Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi founded Opus One. The stuff costs about $200 a bottle and is among the most highly touted wines in Napa. The first vintage was made in 1979. In 1981, a case of it sold for $24,000, the highest price paid for a California wine at that time. You can get a case today for about one-tenth that amount.

 Yesterday afternoon, I gave a short interview on the Wall Street Shuffle radio show (1190 AM in Dallas-Ft. Worth), co-hosted by Dan Cofall and Danny Stewart.

Stewart asked me several questions, and I think my answers might have caught him a little off-guard. I also think my answers (which I share below) might provide little-reported insight on the operation of popular financial media outlets like... oh... I don't know... CNBC, for example.

 The first question Stewart asked was what I thought about the market going up 200 points yesterday…

The real answer is this: One-day moves have virtually no meaning. Attempting to assign meaning where there is none is a waste of time.

I was thinking about this topic because I've been watching CNBC every day, just tuning in randomly for an hour or two to try to figure out what business they're really in. And I think I've figured it out. CNBC's real racket...

 CNBC exists for the primary purpose of pretending to know why various markets and securities just went up or down by a few points. Of course, the hosts have no idea why this or that stock or index just moved a few points. No one does. These events are random and attempts to assign meaning to them are futile.

But that's OK. CNBC's business isn't knowing. It's pretending to know. It can be in that business because its audience doesn't realize investing isn't about the movements of prices, but rather changes in value.

Looking good and speaking in a clear voice are important for CNBC personnel, too. But looking good isn't nearly as important as making sure you say something that amounts to nothing.

That's great for you and me, though. You don't get rich in the stock market by watching indexes go up and down and pretending to know why. You and I can seize upon that knowledge and use it to our advantage.

 Oh, one more thing... Meaningless statistics are a big part of the illusion of saying something that appears clever. For example, yesterday's meaningless statistic was that the Dow Jones Industrials Average has moved 100 points or more in 17 of the last 22 sessions. Who cares? What I want to know is, did the values of the Dow 30 change much each day? If not, it sure looks like there's a great opportunity in there somewhere.

This up-and-down motion is great fodder for the cult of meaninglessness at CNBC. The favorite buzzword today is "volatility." Volatility is how much stock prices go up and down. What you'll never hear about volatility on CNBC is that business values don't change as rapidly as market prices do. And you'll never hear anyone complain as loudly about upside volatility as they do about downside volatility... even though the huge upside moves into overvalued territory set the stage for the big downside moves in undervalued territory.

I hope you see there's a conversation that the popular financial media never has with its audience, but which could benefit you greatly. I try hard to have that conversation with my subscribers.

 The next question Stewart asked got away from the silly business of talking about price quotes and closer to the truly important business of knowing where to invest your money... "What's the World Dominator of the banking sector?"

Longtime readers know I've recommended "World Dominating" businesses like Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, and Intel. So the question was really which mega-bank would I buy?

The answer is none. I challenge anyone to look me in the eye and tell me he's read every page of Bank of America's 900-page 10-K. And if he's really read it, I want him to tell me he understands all the pieces of the business so well that he can calculate its intrinsic value. I bet even the bank analysts on Wall Street don't truly know what these mega-businesses are worth.

Is it even possible for anybody to know what BOA's $2.5 trillion balance sheet is really worth? I have the same question for shareholders of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and even Warren Buffett's beloved Wells Fargo. Yes, I seriously doubt Warren Buffett has a reasonable idea of the intrinsic value of Wells Fargo. It's too complicated. It's too big, even for him. And even if Buffett really knows… you and I don't and can't, and neither can hardly anybody else in the market.

So if you own any of these stocks, you're ratcheting up your risk of losing money… because that's the usual result of not knowing what you own.

 The Wall Street Shuffle also asked me about companies like Wal-Mart, Intel, and Abbott Laboratories – all companies I hold in my 12% Letter. These are the World Dominating Dividend Grower stocks most individual investors ought to build their equity portfolios around.

They're better businesses than most of the stocks you'll ever own. They're more consistently profitable than any other company you've ever invested in. They grow their dividends every year like clockwork. They gush free cash flow every year and use it to pay dividends and buy back stock. Wal-Mart has grown its dividend every year of its existence as a public company. Abbott Labs has grown its dividend every year for 38 years. Intel started paying a dividend in 1995 and has raised it every year since 2003.

With markets bouncing up and down relentlessly and promising to deliver more of the same for years to come, you need to buy great dividend-paying stocks. And you need to reinvest those dividends if you want to make money in stocks over the next five to 10 years, maybe longer. You're not going to see a real, honest-to-goodness bull market for at least that long. So you have to earn some dividends.

World Dominating Dividend Growers are the big, safe, reliable dividend stocks you should buy first. I've got a whole list of them in The 12% Letter.

 After you buy them, you can add some of the other interesting income stocks I've found. In the current issue of The 12% Letter, I've got one that's paying 5.5% today. Management has made it clear the dividend will grow as much as 10% a year for the next two years. It's one of the safest, best blue-chip companies in its industry. It owns some of the most essential infrastructure assets in the country, without which life as we know it would come to a grinding halt for about 30 million U.S. homes.

And it has exciting growth opportunities that will keep growing the business – as much as 50% over the next couple years. The dividend has gone up for six straight quarters. And with the projects it has underway now, this company could continue growing for another six quarters. If you want to learn more about The 12% Letter and get access to the current issue, click here.

 I'm going on vacation this weekend, and I won't be back to my desk until Wednesday, September 21. So if you're an Extreme Value subscriber, you'll get an update tomorrow. Then you won't see one until the Monday after I return. If you're a 12% Letter subscriber, you won't receive an update next week, but you'll see one the following week. I'm headed off to sunny, warm climates complete with palm trees, sand, ocean, and fruity drinks. I'll see you when I return. (Don't worry, Sean and Porter will keep up the Digest while I'm away.)

 New Highs: Market Vectors Gold ETF (GDX), Coca-Cola (KO), Eldorado Gold (EGO), EV Energy Partners LP (EVEP)

 Not much in the mailbag today. Please write in and tell us if you watch CNBC regularly and, if so, what you're getting out of it… feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

 "You are driving me crazy with the incompatibility of the advice from your different publications. You wrote about investing in debt in True Income today, but just recently, wrote about the crash of the international financial system because of unserviceable debt.

"We know that it will all come crashing down, but I feel you need to present your subscribers with an exit strategy from income investing (i.e., present these suggestions in the context of the Big Picture within which we invest). We need to know that there is a plan on when to bail, before getting comfortable with bonds again. How do we avoid getting caught with a large bond portfolio in a suddenly illiquid global system?" – Paid-up subscriber D.S.

Ferris comment: Regarding the "incompatibility of the advice," we all have our own different views. I can't imagine you'd take us seriously if we all agreed.

As for your question about investing in debt, the way to avoid getting caught is to sell now. There's no other way to avoid "a suddenly illiquid global system," because you can't know when that would happen. The only rational thing to do if you anticipate such an event occurring is to sell now and wait.

One of the worst mistakes investors make is believing in their own ability to time every entry and exit with precision. No one ever does that. It's impossible. If you're afraid of a global illiquidity crisis, you should sell and wait out the storm. Otherwise, you'd have to claim the ability to time the market, which no one has.

 "A new video game has just been released by the ACORN/Madison Wisconsin thug leftist types. Google 'Tea Party Zombies Must Die' to check it out yourself. This comes a couple days after Jimmy Hoffa, the Teamsters labor boss, called for his Obama army to 'take out those sons of bitches' in reference to the tea party movement. After Hoffa's hate filled speech, Obama took to the stage and actually thanked him for his support.

"Can the national socialist brownshirts of the 1930s, and some sort of anti-tea party 'kristallnacht' be far behind? Looks like – if the folks above have their way – it just might be." – Anonymous

Ferris comment: If you really want to be scared to death, read Naomi Wolf's book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. It's page after page of parallels between recent U.S. administrations and the Nazis. Most of the time in conversation, it's hard to take those comparisons seriously. But I promise you'll take them more seriously than you already do if you read Wolf's book.

 I enjoyed today's digest interview with Mike Williams. I am already a subscriber to his service. I am worried that you guys may decide to drop True Income if it doesn't make enough money for you. Please don't do this. I have already purchased nine of his recommended bonds and plan to buy more if the prices come down. I think buying bonds is a great way to diversify my portfolio and appreciate his recommendations.

"I love getting those interest payments and don't worry about day to day fluctuations in the prices since you are guaranteed to get your principal back if the companies stay in business until maturation. I have had the most success waiting about a month or more after the issue comes out. I have gotten into all the bonds I have purchased well under the recommended price. – Paid-up subscriber E.P.

Ferris comment: Don't worry. We have no plans to stop publishing True Income. It might not make us a lot of money, but it's a great service, one we're proud to offer. Everyone ought to look into it. Click here to sign up.

Regards,

Dan Ferris

Medford, Oregon

September 8, 2011

The Atlas 400 at Opus One... Wall Street Shuffle calls... CNBC decoded... Why mega bank shareholders are delusional... The first stocks you should buy today... An essential infrastructure play yielding 5.5% and growing... I'm off!...