The Untold Alzheimer's Story

A shutdown means a blackout... What the data says before the market 'flies blind'... The radical Alzheimer's shift no one sees coming... An update on QMMM... RIP Jonathan Clements...

The jobs market still isn't doing great...

That's the takeaway from the newest – and perhaps last – official government report about the labor market that we may read for a while.

Today's widely followed Job Openings and Labor Turnovers Survey ("JOLTS") numbers for August showed that new hires made up 3.2% of total employment in the U.S. last month. That may sound good on the surface, but it's the lowest gain since 2020.

Plus, there are now 157,000 more unemployed Americans than there are job openings (7.23 million). That's the most this ratio has been skewed in the "wrong" direction since March 2021.

Meantime, the Conference Board's monthly consumer confidence report came in below Wall Street expectations... Among other findings, Americans' confidence about job availability fell for the ninth month in a row to a multiyear low.

Tomorrow brings another private report from payroll processor ADP, which tends to influence the market mood.

After that, though...

Prepare for a blackout...

Unlike in this Stansberry Investor Hour podcast, we're not talking about the energy grid... Instead, I (Corey McLaughlin) mean a blackout of the government's economic data that so often drives short-term market action.

Republicans and Democrats are squabbling over a "continuing resolution" that would fund the government for the next seven weeks. If they don't work it out in the next few hours, the government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. tonight. (Even if they do reach a compromise, they'll go through the whole dance again in a month and a half.)

During a government shutdown, we won't receive Uncle Sam's labor-market numbers that are due out over the rest of the week.

That includes weekly jobless claims on Thursday and Friday's scheduled "nonfarm payrolls" report, which includes an update to the monthly unemployment rate. That's a key number for Federal Reserve interest-rate policy and expectations moving ahead.

As we wrote yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics ("BLS") has said that in the event of a shutdown – which appears likely as of this writing – it won't just fail to put out its planned releases. What's more, "all active data collection activities for BLS surveys will cease," meaning future reports could be delayed or incomplete.

So, we might be entering a period – even if brief – of "blackout" when it comes to labor-market data. And if that's the case, investors will have to fly blind with the latest data points they have. That's a trend showing a gradually weakening jobs market.

Today's numbers boosted expectations of another Fed rate cut at the central bank's next meeting in late October. Federal-funds futures odds jumped from around 90% to close to 97% today.

But there was an ever-so slight sign of this being taken as "bad news" rather than "good." The major U.S. stock indexes were mixed. Several of the major S&P 500 Index sectors were down or had a slim gain, except for health care – which was up 2.5%.

That sector was boosted by news from the White House about a deal with the drugmaker Pfizer (PFE). In the arrangement, Pfizer will lower its prices but gets a three-year grace period from facing pharmaceutical-specific tariffs.

Functioning governments or not, the world keeps spinning...

Thank goodness for that... And speaking of health care, we have important developments – and investing opportunities – to share in the space.

Our Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig and his team just published a collection of new research for Prosperity Investor subscribers and Stansberry Alliance members. As they explain in this newsletter on health care investing, radical changes are underway in the way doctors can identify and treat insidious diseases, thanks to companies using new and emerging technologies...

Take Alzheimer's, the progressive neurodegenerative disease afflicting an estimated 7.2 million Americans age 65 and older, according to the Alzheimer's Association. As Doc writes in a special report for Prosperity Investor subscribers, most folks don't get their diagnosis until it's already too late...

In the early stages, brain cells are still mostly alive. But they're beginning to struggle. In the later stages, a lot of the damage has already been done. And you can't bring dead neurons back to life.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't see a doctor until they start spotting signs that something's wrong.

But once you start putting your belongings in weird places... or forget a recipe you've been cooking your entire life... the neurological damage is already irreversible.

Your brain starts changing from Alzheimer's disease as much as two decades before you start showing any symptoms.

In an ideal world, you would get diagnosed with Alzheimer's in your mid-30s.

But we don't know a single 30-something who's champing at the bit to get a $5,000 brain scan or a spinal tap that requires a 7-inch needle.

What's more, primary care doctors are notoriously bad at screening for Alzheimer's... And even dementia specialists misdiagnose 1 in 4 patients.

Fortunately, there's a company trying to change this...

In the report, Doc and the team go on to detail precisely how this new way of screening for Alzheimer's works, how it could change the disease "forever," and why it could be the catalyst for one stock to soar.

And that's not the only breakthrough they share with subscribers...

Doc and our team also detail another company that can help people address a major risk factor for developing Alzheimer's... plus they discuss the "AI drug discovery revolution" happening right now and share a speculative biotech bet with triple-digit upside to consider.

Alliance members and existing Prosperity Investor subscribers have access to all of this research here. And if you're interested in joining them, hear more directly from Doc in this new presentation here, and get started today...

Thanks to bleeding-edge advances in diagnosis, treatment, and prevention...

Alzheimer's is following in the footsteps of heart disease, HIV/AIDS, and many forms of cancer – and becoming a livable, manageable condition.

Few realize this paradigm shift is underway... and even fewer are aware of the multiple ways to profit from this radical change.

As Doc says, this is a unique opportunity to capture huge gains by getting in on the next big health care story before it becomes common knowledge. Again, click here to learn more if you don't have access to Prosperity Investor already.

The calls have finally been heard...

On last week's episode of the Stansberry Investor Hour, we shared our interview with Bear Cave editor Edwin Dorsey. Edwin shared a few short ideas and also sounded the alarm on QMMM Holdings (QMMM), a U.S.-listed Chinese company whose stock he said was being manipulated by overseas groups on social media.

Edwin put together an open-source website about these schemes and others here. And you can hear him talk about QMMM on the Investor Hour episode starting here.

Well, on Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission halted trading on QMMM and Smart Digital (SDM) – another one Edwin has warned about – until October 10. The agency highlighted "potential manipulation" on social media that appears "to be designed to artificially inflate the price" of the stocks.

Both companies said in September that they were creating cryptocurrency "treasuries" – a concept that we've also cautioned about here. But it was the action in the share prices that warranted attention... along with evidence like Edwin collected about stock prices being manipulated through the WhatsApp messaging platform.

Our Stansberry's Investment Advisory lead editor Whitney Tilson has been following this story, too, calling it a "pump and dump" scheme. Whitney wrote in his free daily e-letter on September 3 to avoid QMMM at all costs, then followed up in the September 16 edition. Today, Whitney wrote...

I'm glad the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") finally took action with something I've been warning about... but it's too late...

All the naive American investors who got sucked into the stock are going to lose nearly all of their money – $6.8 billion based on the current market cap – when the stock starts trading again.

Whitney's recommendation? "As I've been saying for years, the SEC should simply ban all Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges," he says.

RIP Jonathan Clements...

Whitney recently mentioned another thing in his daily letter that I'd like to acknowledge as well: The investing world lost one of its great writers recently. As Whitney shared on Friday...

Jonathan Clements, who wrote more than 1,000 personal-finance columns for the Wall Street Journal, passed away far too young at the age of 62. It was only a year and a half after he was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer, despite being in superb physical shape and never smoking.

I regularly read Jonathan's work. Much of it was aimed at people in or near retirement, but anyone of any age interested in personal-finance information and suggestions should take a look at it. And you still can, because much of Clements' work and ideas are timeless and easily available.

In 2016, after 20 years of working at the Journal and a stint with Citi's wealth management division, Jonathan founded his own website, HumbleDollar. It is filled with tons of practical tips and philosophical thoughts about managing money and investments. Here's an excerpt from one of his pieces in February 2024...

We're all captives of our own experiences. Want to behave more rationally? We should set aside our life's anecdotal evidence and instead make decisions using the best information we can find. Yet our experiences – especially those during childhood and that involve family – tend to triumph, shaping our world view and potentially setting us up for costly financial mistakes.

What drives your behavior, financially and otherwise? A little introspection could help you better understand your financial choices – a crucial first step to behaving better.

He went on to explain the life experiences – like attending boarding school, learning about the creation and destruction of family wealth in previous generations, and going through two divorces – that shaped his own behavior now... and why this mattered when it comes to money.

Jonathan continued writing and editing the site after his cancer diagnosis – publishing a piece as recently as June about four dreams he had in life but let slip away. And the site will live on through a group of contributors.

He also had the foresight to essentially write his own obituary, which went live on his website last Monday after he passed away. Jonathan's widow says his readers can expect more articles that he wrote before his death to be published posthumously.

Talk about keeping a legacy going. Rest in peace.

New 52-week highs (as of 9/29/25): AbbVie (ABBV), Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM), First Majestic Silver (AG), Alamos Gold (AGI), Altius Minerals (ALS.TO), Valterra Platinum (ANGPY), American Express (AXP), Alpha Architect 1-3 Month Box Fund (BOXX), Ciena (CIEN), Electronic Arts (EA), Equinox Gold (EQX), SPDR Euro STOXX 50 Fund (FEZ), Franco-Nevada (FNV), VanEck Gold Miners Fund (GDX), VanEck Junior Gold Miners Fund (GDXJ), SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), L3Harris Technologies (LHX), Grand Canyon Education (LOPE), Monster Beverage (MNST), OR Royalties (OR), Ormat Technologies (ORA), Pan American Silver (PAAS), Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS), Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV), Royal Gold (RGLD), Seabridge Gold (SA), Sandstorm Gold (SAND), Sprott (SII), iShares Silver Trust (SLV), SSR Mining (SSRM), TKO Group (TKO), Torex Gold Resources (TORXF), Uranium Energy (UEC), ProShares Ultra Gold (UGL), Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM), and W.R. Berkley (WRB).

A quiet mailbag today... Guess nobody's concerned about a government shutdown... As always, send your comments and questions to feedback@stansberryresearch.com.

All the best,

Corey McLaughlin with Nick Koziol
Baltimore, Maryland
September 30, 2025