THE S&A DIGEST: How to Quit Anything

Stansberry & Associates Top 10 Open Recommendations
(Top 10 highest-returning open positions across all S&A portfolios)

As of 07/05/2013

Tom Dyson on how to quit smoking… The war on grannies… The longest winning streak ever for the S&P 500… We’ve angered the fundamentalist bigots… A Coast Guard without boats… Graham rants about Keith Urban…

Let’s start with what’s become a new theme for us: ominous signs of a market top. The Economist notes: As of last Friday, the S&P 500 hasn’t fallen more than 1% for 125 days straight. This is one of its longest winning streaks in the last 25 years. Interesting, eh?

Rick Rule told me something very interesting about the proposed Canadian law that threatens to take away Canadian royalty trusts’ tax advantages. The way the new law is written, it only applies to public companies. Ergo, a lot of these trusts will probably be taken private if, in four years, the law does go into effect. And that might create a very profitable way out for American investors.

The war on drugs has a new enemy: grandmothers. Two weeks ago, a 92-year old woman was shot to death after police raided her home for drugs… and after she shot three of them during the raid. This week, a granny dealer was in Arizona court. State troopers found 214 pounds of marijuana in 61-year-old Leticia Villareal’s trunk. Villareal told a jury on Thursday that she sells marijuana to pay for her bingo habit.

The former CEO – "crooked executive officer" – at United Health (William McGuire) might not get the rich severance package he was promised or any of his remaining stock options. A federal judge has ordered such assets frozen until all of the shareholder lawsuits and the board completes its investigation of McGuire’s backdating and other illegal option grants. This development is highly unusual… and could mean good things for investors at companies like "Black" Jack Gifford’s Maxim Integrated Products. If the courts rescind these jumbo options grants and outsized severance agreements (as they should, I believe) shareholders could see significant upside. In many cases, as much as 25% of a company’s total shares outstanding are waiting to be exercised.

Eight of the 10 Coast Guard cutters in Key West are out of service due to hull cracks. If there’s trouble in Cuba when Castro dies, we don’t have the assets in place to prevent another massive boatload of refugees. While that’s fine with me (I grew up in Florida and lived in Miami for a time… some of my best friends are Cuban refugees), it makes me wonder where all the money we’ve spent on "Homeland Security" has gone?

Yesterday, we learned the Chinese government would hand over part of its $1 trillion U.S. dollar slush fund to Wall Street’s big money managers. Apparently, China’s not the only sucker in Asia. Today, the Journal reports that India, too, has taken an interest in U.S. brokerage accounts. Citigroup, ABN Amro, and E*Trade have all garnered new brokerage business from Indian households this year. Indians now have 5% of their savings in individual stocks and mutual funds, up from 1.1% of their savings last year. It’s a global market for chumps. I wonder if Where Are the Customers’ Yachts? has been published in India yet…

"Keith Urban is like Jesus Christ down here… his posters are everywhere." Graham has already begun to question his new bullish-on-Nashville theory… Keith Urban might deter some of those wealthy young people he’s counting on moving to Nashville. But he seems serious about moving down there himself. He’s eyeing a house in East Nashville, which he tells me is actually north of the city. Anyone got a house for sale in Nashville? Talk to Graham Summers.

Perhaps the novelty is wearing off. We’ve seen a lull in your e-mails. Especially angry ones. Listen: We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing unless you convince us to change. And nothing is more convincing to us than totally irrational, highly emotional, expletive-laden demands that we stop doing one thing or another. So please, don’t hesitate to write: feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

"Dear Porter, no wonder you are a good market analyst… Skimming over your recipe for brisket shows me you’re a man of much patience and diligence," wrote paid-up subscriber Mark Heitov.

Porter Comment: My wife says it only proves that I like to eat too much.

"8 cords of wood?" Paid-up subscriber Bob Montgomery suspected a bit of hyperbole in my account of Tommy’s splitting job. Yes, it really was eight cords. Not all from one tree, of course. There was a bunch of wood already in the barn, too. But Tommy split it all for $150.

"Well, I may be a bit slow, but it finally sunk in. If I am paying someone to give me investment advice, I would want them to be intelligent, sensitive, and wise. How intelligent is it, though, to continue to gratuitously insult segments of your clientele? I’m sure you will have a clever riposte, but I will no longer be around to read it. I will not be renewing." The note was signed: "Bigoted Fundamentalist Christian."

Porter Comment: Like I said yesterday… There’s nothing as warm and friendly as a bigoted religious fundamentalist.

"It is too bad that you are rich from the world’s view, but what does your account look like in heaven?" – Joe L, Dallas Texas

Porter Comment: Beats me. I don’t pretend to know the mind of God.

How to Quit Anything

By Tom Dyson

If you want to quit smoking, you must read Allen Carr’s book, The Easy Way To Stop Smoking.

For five years, I tried to quit smoking. I went to three hypnotists, bought CD-ROMs, tried patches, and went to my doctor. I even made bets with my friends. Nothing worked. Then I read Allen Carr’s book, and it cured me.

Quitting cigarettes was actually fun! I haven’t smoked a cigarette in six years, and I will never smoke again.

Now, whenever anyone mentions quitting smoking, I always suggest this book. It is, quite literally, the best book I have ever read.

Allen Carr, who believes that fear of quitting kept many smoking, applied his antismoking techniques to other areas. He’s written books on how to cure alcohol abuse, drug abuse, overeating, how to stop your children smoking... even a cure for fear of flying.

But he’s best known for his smoking clinics.

He started off as an accountant. He smoked 100 cigarettes a day. Then one day, as he sat in his car, suffering from another smoking-related nosebleed, he had an epiphany.

He saw how to unlock the smoking trap. It cured him immediately. And not only did he cure himself, he was so happy to be free, he set up a clinic to help other people get free, too.

It became the world’s most successful program. Allen Carr’s clinics are found all over the world now, and he has dozens of books on Amazon. His stop-smoking books are always massive bestsellers. Many famous celebrities – like Sir Anthony Hopkins and Sir Richard Branson – have used Carr’s techniques to stop smoking.

I’ve read all sorts of self-help books... Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale... but I love Allen Carr’s books the best. He writes with such a folksy style. But it’s not American folksy, it’s English middle-class folksiness. He’s so honest and unpretentious. I even studied his books when I was learning how to write DailyWealth columns. It’s so compelling, yet simple to understand and read.

Yesterday, Allen Carr died of lung cancer.

It’s funny… one of the most important rules in his program was, patients had to keep smoking throughout the whole session or until they finished the book. Otherwise, he said, smokers wouldn’t be able to hear his message. He worked with smokers every day in his clinics.

He hadn’t smoked in 22 years. He says if he hadn’t quit, he would have died 20 years ago. It’s unknown if the passive smoking killed him or his previous habit.

"It was a price worth paying," said Carr just before he died.

It is estimated that Allen Carr cured over 10 million smokers, maybe millions more.

R.I.P.

Tom Dyson

December 1, 2006

P.S. Here’s a link to the story in one of Britain’s newspapers. Here’s a link to one of his books on Amazon.

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