Porter Stansberry

Frank Porter Stansberry is an American financial publisher and author. Stansberry founded Stansberry Research (previously Stansberry & Associates Investment Research), a private publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1999.[1] He is the author of the monthly newsletter, Stansberry's Investment Advisory, which covers investments and investment theory in commodities, real estate, and the stock market. Stansberry is also the creator of the 2011 online video The End of America, in which he predicts the imminent collapse of the United States.[2][3] In 2002, the SEC brought a case for securities fraud and a federal judge fined him $1.5 million in 2007.[4] In 2006, his longtime friend Rey Rivera died mysteriously after working for Stansberry Research as a financial writer.[5]

Frank Porter Stansberry
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Florida
OccupationFinancial publisher, Founder Stansberry Research
WebsitePorter Stansberry

Career

In 1999, Stansberry founded Stansberry Research, a private publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland.[6]

SEC case

In 2002, Stansberry sent out an email offering to sell for $1,000 the name of a company purportedly about to obtain a contract to dismantle nuclear weapons for Russia.[7] The Securities and Exchange Commission sued him in 2003[8] on this basis and for his newsletters containing "nothing more than baseless speculation and outright lies",[7] accusing him of a "scheme to defraud public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters."[1][7] The case went to trial in 2005,[9] and a federal court, upheld on appeal, found that Stansberry had sent out a newsletter to subscribers predicting one company's stock, USEC Inc., was going to increase by over 100%. Stansberry maintains that his information came from a company executive; the court ruled that he fabricated the source.[1] In 2007 a U.S. District Court judge ordered Stansberry and his investment firm, then called "Pirate Investor", to pay $1.5 million in restitution and civil penalties for defrauding "public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters."[8][9] The court rejected Stansberry's First Amendment defense, saying "Stansberry's conduct undoubtedly involved deliberate fraud, making statements that he knew to be false."[7]

At the time of the trial, many media outlets spoke out due to their views that the case was relevant to First Amendment rights. A group of newspaper publishers urged the Supreme Court[10] to reverse the decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that Stansberry was liable, and signed an Amici Curiae in defense of Stansberry. They claimed that a guilty verdict was "a significant threat to the free dissemination of news about the financial markets and specific investment opportunities" and could lead to a situation that "would be contrary to the spirit of our system of a free and independent press."[11] When the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, a New York Times editorial column noted that "the implications of the S.E.C.'s action are potentially profound: newspapers or Web sites promising their paying readers stock information that later turns out to be untrue suddenly leave themselves open to fraud charges. Any financial commentator who passes on bad information in good faith could be sued."[12]

Continued career

Stansberry is the editor of the internet financial newsletters Porter Stansberry's Investment Advisory and Porter Stansberry's Put Strategy Report.[6] He also contributes regularly to Daily Wealth and The Growth Stock Wire, other Stansberry Research publications.[13]

He became the first American editor of the Fleet Street Letter, Britain's longest-running financial newsletter.[6][14] Stansberry is a frequent contributor to WorldNet Daily, an American web site that publishes news and associated content from the perspective of U.S. conservatives and the political right.

In June 2017, Stansberry Research Publications began publishing a financial/political online opinion magazine, American Consequences, which ostensibly is intended to be, "a new, online magazine about what's really happening in American finance… and what's about to happen next." The Editor in Chief is libertarian journalist, humorist and commentator, P. J. O'Rourke. Stansberry is listed as a contributing editor. The free publication includes many ads for Stansberry publications and seminars.

Rivera case
Main article: Death of Rey Rivera

On May 16, 2006, Stansberry's childhood friend and coworker Rey Rivera went missing and was later found dead inside the Belvedere Hotel. The case was portrayed in the Netflix reboot of Unsolved Mysteries in 2020. Stansberry has countered some of the claims made by saying, "we were all sad and shocked by the fact that Rey killed himself, but once we saw all the facts and his financial pressures, it wasn't much of a mystery."[9]

Claims and predictions

Porter Stansberry claimed to have made a number of successful financial market predictions. In June 2008, Porter claims that he predicted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would go bankrupt in the next 12 months, as well as going on to say that he positioned his clients to profit by shorting stocks, and that he does not know of any other firm that "more accurately forecasted" or warned that the financial crisis was coming.[15] By September 2008, both mortgage companies were placed into government conservatorship.[16] Peter Schiff reviewed all of the newsletters that Stansberry released from 2006 to 2008 and challenged his "predictions" live on his radio show on the 26 May 2011.[17][18]

On October 22, 2012, Stansberry released a "tip" to his subscribers to invest heavily in gold. The full heading was "Why You Must Buy Gold, or Even Better, Silver, Now".

Investigative journalist Brian Deer watched his tip and tracked performance. Even as the price fell over a month after his tip, an online interview was published wherein he responded to the question: "When do you suppose the gold price will start climbing again?" with "I don't have any timetable. I can just tell you that I haven't sold any of my gold and I won't until there is a gold-backed, well-financed national currency that offers me a reasonable yield for the risk I take to finance the government."[19]

Since Porter's Gold recommendation on October 22, 2012,[20] when gold was trading at $1,710 gold has risen to over $1,965 today.[21]

The End of America

In 2011, Stansberry produced a 77-minute promotional video titled The End of America.[22] Investigative journalist Brian Deer, whose website prominently features a long article on Stansberry's exploits, wrote:

In this extraordinary video, Porter Stansberry takes the marketing of his newsletters to new heights. Released in late 2010, it was heavily promoted in media as the flagship for a new campaign from the Baltimore-based investment tipster. Among Stansberry's predictions were the literal collapse of the United States, and among his suggestions – apart from buying gold, silver and other metals – was that investors might want to stock up on canned food. Although no data was released from Stansberry and Associates, all the signs were that the project was a success for the advisor, if of mixed benefit to investors who did not see the fall of western democracy.[23]

References
  1. Liptak, Adam. "E-mail Stock Tip Tests Limits of Security Laws". The New York Times. Retrieved August 3, 2003.
  2. "The End of America".. The original URL is www.stansberryresearch.com/pro/1011PSIENDVD/PPSIM1AJ/PR but one cannot pause the video.
  3. Curtin, Stacy. ""The End of America": Porter Stansberry Sees the Future ... And It's Grim". Yahoo Finance. Archived from the original on February 19, 2011.
  4. Bishop, Tricia (August 10, 2007). "$1.5 million payback ordered in SEC suit". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
  5. https://www.wbaltv.com/article/suicide-or-murder-evidence-reviewed/7054411
  6. "Porter Stansberry Profile". Townhall.com.
  7. "Complaint, Agora, Inc, Pirate Investor, LLC, and Frank Porter Stansberry, Defendant". Retrieved June 30, 2013.
  8. Pellejero, Sebastian; Maranz, Felice (February 8, 2019). "His Hedge Fund Shut, Whitney Tilson Says Now He'll Try Research". Bloomberg. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  9. Fenton, Justin (August 5, 2020). "Rey Rivera's friend, former Baltimore employer pushes back on Netflix's 'Unsolved Mysteries'". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  10. AP. "Supreme Court won't hear appeal of financial newsletter prosecution on securities fraud". Fox News. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  11. "Brief Amici Curiae Of The Reporters Committee For Freedom Of The Press And Media Organizations In Support Of Petitioners" (PDF). NY Times Graphics. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  12. "The Right to Be Wrong". The New York Times. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
  13. "Daily Wealth". Dailywealth.com. Missing or empty |url= (help)
  14. "The Fleet Street Letter".
  15. Abelson, Alan. "Au Revoir or Goodbye?". Barrons. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
  16. Goldfarb, Zachary A.; Cho, David; Appelbaum, Binyamin. "Treasury to Rescue Fannie and Freddie". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 7, 2014.
  17. Peter Schiff. "Peter Schiff challenges Porter Stansberry" – via YouTube.
  18. Staff, Schiff. "Peter Schiff". Schiffradio.com.
  19. "Porter Stansberry Research: was he right on gold and silver? 2 – briandeer.com".
  20. "London Fix Historical gold - result". www.kitco.com. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  21. "London Fix Historical gold - result". www.kitco.com. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
  22. "Silver Prices Kindled by Unorthodox Investors". KUOW NPR. Washington: University of Washington. June 11, 2011.
  23. Deer, Brian. "Porter Stansberry's "End of America" video". BrianDeer.com. Retrieved March 11, 2017.

Official website

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