What You Must Know Before 'Crossing the Desert'

Editor's note: On Saturday, we shared an essay from Porter Stansberry – founder of our corporate affiliate Stansberry Research. This week, we're continuing our series of insights from Porter in anticipation of his big on-camera appearance this Thursday – starting today with one of his classic essays on why experience matters in investing... Let's start […] Not rendering correctly? View this e-mail as a web page [here](. [Empire Financial Daily] Editor's note: On Saturday, we shared an essay from Porter Stansberry – founder of our corporate affiliate Stansberry Research. This week, we're continuing our series of insights from Porter in anticipation of his [big on-camera appearance this Thursday]( – starting today with one of his classic essays on why experience matters in investing... --------------------------------------------------------------- What You Must Know Before 'Crossing the Desert' By Porter Stansberry --------------------------------------------------------------- [REVEALED: The most dangerous man in America...]( A powerful man unbeknownst to most Americans is about to change the course of history... It's not Joe Biden, Donald Trump, or any other politician. In fact, this person has never run for or held elected office. Most people wouldn't know him if they bumped into him on the street. But on December 13 at 2 p.m. Eastern time, this man is set to make a statement. A declaration that could send shockwaves through our financial system... and instantly change the trajectory of more than $5 trillion in American money. While most people will be blindsided by this statement... you have a unique opportunity. A chance to prepare for this event... to be on the right side of history... and potentially coming out wealthier than you ever thought possible. To find out what you need to do to prepare, [click here to get the full story](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Let's start here... in the desert... Imagine you had to walk across the Rub' al Khali – the "Empty Quarter" – of the Arabian Peninsula. This 250,000-square-mile desert is the largest sand desert in the world. Sand dunes there reach as high as 800 feet. It rains less than two inches a year. The surface temperatures reach 125 degrees. Think about the three most important pieces of equipment you'd need, beyond the most basic stuff like shoes, clothes, food, water, etc. This isn't hypothetical... Three guys decided to try and walk across this desert... In 2013, South Africans Dave Joyce, Marco Broccardo, and Alex Harris became the first humans to walk completely unassisted through the Empty Quarter. They plotted a 1,000-kilometer course from Salalah, Oman to Dubai. Their story is completely nuts... but fascinating. The most obvious piece of advanced equipment you'd need? A GPS, right? Nope. What they needed most wasn't a GPS... or even a map. What they had to have to make it across 1,000 kilometers of desert in 40 days (after which they would have quickly starved to death) was Google Earth. They needed to know their precise position in the desert relative to the giant sand dunes, which you can only see using Google Earth's satellite photos. Before the advent of publicly available satellite photos, walking across this desert would have been impossible. GPS alone wouldn't have been enough. The second item Joyce, Broccardo, and Harris needed was a strong, lightweight, easy-to-pull cart, so they could carry enough water for the journey. Obviously, they needed food, too. But the water was far more critical and heavy to carry. (You can survive for up to three weeks without food. But most people would only make it three days without water.) They spent about three years testing various designs for carrying enough water. The key to success was using mountain bike tires on their cart, rather than wide full tires, which were too difficult to pull through the sand. And finally... to make sure they had continuous access to Google Earth, they needed to use a solar-based charger to power up a satellite phone. They lost the charger on the 10th day of the trip. So one of them had to turn around and follow their tracks for 25 kilometers to find the charger before it got dark. Without it, they probably would have died. Imagine trying to find that charger... before dark... in the desert... by yourself... knowing that if you couldn't find it, you and your friends would probably die. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended Link: [Major Announcement From Porter Stansberry]( The government is broken... the economy is broken... financial systems are failing. What's next for America? On October 26, Stansberry Research founder Porter Stansberry will share his next big prediction. To get the details, [click here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- So what the heck do three crazy South Africans hiking across a giant desert have to do with investing? It's obvious (to me)... For most individual investors, the process of trying to manage their savings in the stock market is a lot like trying to cross the Rub' al Khali desert on foot. You have few landmarks to guide your way. And there are lots of ways to die. Most people don't make it. Learning the story about the guys crossing the desert, I started thinking about the most important things investors need to understand if they're going to be successful in the stock market. I'm not talking about the obvious stuff... like the way dividends compound returns or the time-value-money formula (which explains that your returns will be driven by how much time your investments have to compound and how much money you save). I'm not talking about the more advanced, but still simple, concepts like position sizing, trailing stop losses, and avoiding taxes (where possible)... It's not that these things are unnecessary. They're critical. But they're like shoes, hats, and sunglasses when you're crossing a desert. Nobody would go without them, and they really don't require much foresight or wisdom. Instead, I wanted to answer two more difficult questions... What are the three things every investor in common stocks must know to succeed, but that you believe most people don't know how to do? Where is the greatest gap between the value of knowledge and the inexperience of most individual investors? I thought about these questions for a long time... And in tomorrow's essay, I'll share the three things you must know to succeed in investing. Regards, Porter Stansberry Editor's note: After three years, Porter is back to issue the most critical warning of his career... along with the straightforward solution. In a special on-camera briefing this Thursday, he'll explain what he says is next for the U.S. and what's next for you. This event is 100% free to attend, but reservations are required. [Reserve your spot here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- If someone forwarded you this e-mail and you would like to be added to the Empire Financial Daily e-mail list to receive e-mails like this every weekday, simply [sign up here](. © 2023 Empire Financial Research. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution, in whole or in part, is prohibited without written permission from Empire Financial Research, 1125 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201 [www.empirefinancialresearch.com.]( You received this e-mail because you are subscribed to Empire Financial Daily. [Unsubscribe from all future e-mails](