Porter Stansberry

Career

In 1999, Stansberry founded Stansberry Research, a private publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the editor of the internet financial newsletters Porter Stansberry's Investment Advisory and Porter Stansberry’s Put Strategy Report. He also contributes regularly to Daily Wealth and The Growth Stock Wire, other Stansberry Research publications.

He became the first American editor of the Fleet Street Letter, Britain’s longest-running financial newsletter. 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. 

False Claims & 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. By September 2008, both mortgage companies were placed into government conservatorship. Peter Schiff reviewed all of the newsletters that Stansberry released from 2006-2008 and challenged his "predictions" live on his radio show on the 26th of May, 2011.

On October 22 of 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."

End of America

In 2011, Stansberry published a 77-minute infomercial titled "End of America". Investigative Journalist, Brian Deer, who dedicated a section of his website as a resource on Stansberry commented: "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."

SEC case

In 2003, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a case against Stansberry for a "scheme to defraud public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters." 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 found that he fabricated the source. The company's stock price did not significantly change even after the insider trading information Stansberry was selling came to fruition. In 2007, he and his investment firm, then called "Pirate Investor", were ordered by a U.S. District Court to pay $1.5 million in restitution and civil penalties. The court rejected Stansberry’s First Amendment defense, saying "Stansberry's conduct undoubtedly involved deliberate fraud, making statements that he knew to be false."

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 to reverse the decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that Mr. 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." 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."