Economists Should Drink More

The higher cost of drinking and smoking in the U.K... The data is leaning toward sticky inflation... When bulls and bears are both wrong... Greg Diamond and Doc Eifrig are expecting a volatile 2024... That's good for options traders... [Stansberry Research Logo] Delivering World-Class Financial Research Since 1999 [Stansberry Digest] The higher cost of drinking and smoking in the U.K... The data is leaning toward sticky inflation... When bulls and bears are both wrong... Greg Diamond and Doc Eifrig are expecting a volatile 2024... That's good for options traders... --------------------------------------------------------------- High(er) inflation isn't quite dead yet... Today brought the market stronger-than-expected U.S. retail sales in December... homebuilders expressing the highest confidence in a few months on the heels of lower mortgage rates... and a typically voluble Federal Reserve official, the New York Fed's John Williams, declining to offer any policy commentary during an anticipated speech. Abroad, U.K. inflation "unexpectedly" picked up to 4% annual growth and a 0.4% gain for December, double the consensus forecast by economists. The cause for the misread? Higher alcohol and tobacco prices (and taxes). According to the Guardian... The increase in the annual rate was largely the result of increases in the cost of tobacco – after the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced higher duty in [November] – and alcohol. Tobacco prices increased by 16% on the year while alcohol was up 9.6%, as the cost of buying cigarettes and drink contributed the most to inflation since 2006. In August, the U.K. raised its duty on alcohol as well, driving up prices. I (Corey McLaughlin) would say that perhaps the economists should drink and smoke to make a more accurate forecast... It could help them get more in touch with what's happening in the real world (like the influence of higher taxes on addictive vices). The point here is that the high(er) inflation story, on paper or in life, isn't fully dead yet. Yes, the overall trend of inflation has been easing for the past year. Folks still dismiss a surprisingly high report here and there as temporary bumps. These price rises might be most directly related to U.K. duty policy, fine. But this example shows how higher taxes to partially fund massive government spending (inevitable in the U.S. as well) can change the behavior of people already dealing with high inflation... and fuel further higher prices, too. In another concerning point, economic data and news in the U.S. and overseas – like [the supply-chain disruptions in the Red Sea]( – have been leaning toward the idea of stickier inflation. This could lead central banks to keep interest rates right where they are for longer than many investors anticipate... rather than cutting them early this year as the market widely believes. At least that's what we see... In the short term for the markets, the scenario also means the "higher for longer" story about interest rates continues to make a comeback, as we've been writing the past few weeks... We're seeing this turn expressed in market action... For the second straight day, yields all along the U.S. Treasury curve rose... The 10-year yield hit 4.1% today for the first time in a little over a month... It's a similar story for the 30-year Treasury, which traded above 4.3%. At the same time, the major U.S. indexes were down today, with the benchmark S&P 500 off half a percentage point, and nearly 1% at its intraday low. The index has now been flat over the past month, flirting with new all-time highs without quite reaching them. Today, the CBOE's Volatility Index ("VIX") – often considered the market's "fear gauge," as it measures options activity on the S&P 500 – rose to above 15, its highest level in two months. Overall, after the rapid year-end rally in 2023 in stocks and long-term bonds, the action has been choppy to begin 2024. Nobody with a particularly strong bullish or bearish conviction has been "winning" lately, at least by betting on broad market moves. Along these lines, our colleague Greg Diamond made an attention-grabbing comment recently... Greg, the editor of our highly regarded Ten Stock Trader publication, joined Dan Ferris and me for the newest edition of the Stansberry Investor Hour podcast. You can [listen to the interview for free on YouTube]( or wherever you typically get your podcasts. Among other insights about his trading process – which we'll get into momentarily – and outlook for 2024, Greg said... It's going to be a rough ride for bulls and bears. That piqued my interest and drew a chuckle from Dan... Whenever that happens, I often suspect I've heard a nugget of truth worth sharing beyond our podcast conversation. Greg's point was that he expects intense volatility – violent market swings up and down – at various yet specific points in 2024. Greg rattled off several during the episode, including one, interestingly, just before November's presidential election. Without giving away too much about the reasons why, this is based on the time-cycle analysis, inspired by the legendary trader W.D. Gann, which Greg used to call the broad market top and bottom in 2022... We might be seeing some of this volatility – on a smaller scale – playing out already. Expectations about interest rates and the path of inflation are moving ever so slightly, and stocks are trading sideways but not peacefully. As an options trader, Greg's looking forward to volatility... That's in part because bigger or more frequent moves can lead to more trading opportunities... and because, using his brand of technical analysis, he's not married to a bullish or bearish view... He may have thoughts and opinions and may not necessarily want to divorce them from his conclusions. But if Greg sees enough signals that cause him to turn temporarily bullish or bearish on a certain sector, stock, or the market in general, he can quickly take advantage of the shift. Greg has been telling his subscribers a lot about this lately. Existing Ten Stock Trader subscribers and Stansberry Alliance members can find his recent work [here](. And as Greg shared with Dan and me on the Investor Hour, for example... If you just looked at the Nasdaq in 2023, since March, it was in a nice uptrend sans a couple of months in the summer, but I don't think that's going to be the case for 2024. It's going to be volatile. He then explained why he'll be trading sectors, rather than individual stocks, for the first half of the year... and went into detail on his study of cycles. Greg explains that he focuses on when something is going to happen rather than why it will happen... Time is the most important factor in trading and investing, then price, then fundamentals... You see these patterns develop, you see these time cycles develop, then the move happens, and then the fundamentals come. "Oh, well, this is why that happened." But you want to be ahead of that fundamental catalyst or fundamental move to make really good trading decisions. [Check out the episode for much more](... In Ten Stock Trader, Greg doesn't often get into speculation about "why" things happen – he's mostly focused on price action – but you'll want to hear his take on one of the potential catalysts for volatility in the next few months... He's talking about the potential ramifications of the Federal Reserve ending its "emergency" bank lending program this March – which, you may recall, began last March amid the regional banking crisis. Time flies. So do dollars, when they're not attached to anything real. Our Doc Eifrig is also expecting volatility in 2024... The writing is all over Wall Street. As Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig wrote in his Retirement Trader publication, published on Friday... Longtime subscribers know that I spent a decade working on Wall Street for major investment banks. I left my cushy position as a senior vice president at Goldman Sachs to become a doctor because the system is packed with greed and hypocrisy. Sure, you'll find a few mavericks who see through the noise and make bold, accurate calls. But most folks moved up the ranks because they know how to schmooze... can hit a decent 7-iron... or simply come from the right family. As you'd suspect, these folks are only interested in getting paid. And the safest way to do that is to follow the herd. If you make the same wrong call as everybody else, there's strength in numbers and everyone will be fine. If you take a risk that doesn't pay off, your career might be over. The result is "groupthink" – everybody agreeing with each other. Based on his decades of experience, Doc uses the popular "groupthink" consensus of the day as a contrarian indicator. When the crowd "all agrees on a prediction," he says, "they've often gotten it dead wrong." As Doc says... If I see the herd piling into a single idea, it presents a risk or opportunity when everyone is surprised. That's why I eagerly read a recent Bloomberg article that compiled more than 650 economic and market outlooks from major banks, top advisers, and asset managers. Here's Wall Street's leading bet... Placid sailing. Wall Street's collective wisdom says interest rates will go down, the economy will mildly slow, and we'll experience a "soft landing" in which inflation gets under control without a painful recession. So that tells me one of two things is coming... a face-blistering rally in stocks as the economy doesn't skip a beat... or a recession in which stocks could take a bath. Either outcome is a good scenario for Doc's options-trading strategy... If 2024 is to be one of high volatility, Doc's Retirement Trader subscribers will be pleased about it, too... When "fear" is on the rise or high, Doc's strategy thrives, though it can also work in just about all economic environments and markets. Doc wrote to you in detail about his strategy (which is different from Greg's) last month here in the Digest. If you're interested at all, I suggest you check out that series [here]( [here]( and [here](. As he explained in one of the essays... The first time you tried to drive a car, it probably seemed complex and risky, too. Now you do it every day. You put the time into learning how to drive because it made your life better. Options will do the same for your finances. And just like learning to drive when you were 16 years old, better finances and larger income streams give you more freedom. I don't blame options skeptics. I blame those who taught them options. Most folks get introduced to options the exact wrong way... as a way to make big, fast gains in the stock market. But when put into practice, this "big gain" tactic leads to big losses. That's why we take the opposite approach in my Retirement Trader service. We use options to reduce the risk of our investments while creating returns that don't exist for other investors. If you've never tried trading options this way, or have been burned trading them in the past, there's no better guide to follow to trade them successfully than Doc. Last month, we said Doc was on a 188-trade winning streak in Retirement Trader, spanning more than three years, and delivered annualized returns of around 20% each year since 2021. The streak is now at 190, once again, proving his strategy can work even in a low-volatility, sideways market environment as we had been seeing until very recently. For more details on Doc's options strategy – which he calls his No. 1 all-time favorite – [click here for more information](. You'll also learn how you can get started with a subscription to Retirement Trader today if you don't have one already... for the best price we've ever offered. --------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended Links: # [Ending Today: The Most Important Stock Warning of 2024]( The same ironclad "law" of finance that predicted 2008 says the next 12 to 36 months could be dangerous and painful for stockholders. But there's a "backdoor" strategy that could show you high-double-digit income and triple-digit gains right through this crisis. And today, a generational opportunity is beginning where the upside could be extraordinary. Before midnight, [click here for the full details](. --------------------------------------------------------------- # [Is This AI's Biggest Breakthrough to Date?]( In the past year, AI has amazed us all with its achievements. It can predict weather, recommend winning stocks, create original art, write computer code, detect skin cancer – and, shockingly, it can do all these things better than most humans. But when you see its latest leap (revealed in on-location footage), you may want to pinch yourself! [Get the full scoop here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- New 52-week highs (as of 1/16/24): Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), CBOE Global Markets (CBOE), CyberArk Software (CYBR), Denison Mines (DNN), Home Depot (HD), Microsoft (MSFT), Novartis (NVS), Palo Alto Networks (PANW), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN), Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM), Spotify Technology (SPOT), Stryker (SYK), Travelers (TRV), and Visa (V). A quiet mailbag today... Do you have a comment or question? As always, e-mail us at feedback@stansberryresearch.com. All the best, Corey McLaughlin Baltimore, Maryland January 17, 2024 --------------------------------------------------------------- Stansberry Research Top 10 Open Recommendations Top 10 highest-returning open positions across all Stansberry Research portfolios Stock Buy Date Return Publication Analyst MSFT Microsoft 11/11/10 1,314.4% Retirement Millionaire Doc MSFT Microsoft 02/10/12 1,235.4% Stansberry's Investment Advisory Porter wstETH Wrapped Staked Ethereum 02/21/20 1,011.3% Stansberry Innovations Report Wade ADP Automatic Data Processing 10/09/08 853.1% Extreme Value Ferris WRB W.R. Berkley 03/16/12 665.3% Stansberry's Investment Advisory Porter BRK.B Berkshire Hathaway 04/01/09 540.2% Retirement Millionaire Doc HSY Hershey 12/07/07 466.7% Stansberry's Investment Advisory Porter AFG American Financial 10/12/12 410.7% Stansberry's Investment Advisory Porter BTC/USD Bitcoin 01/16/20 380.5% Stansberry Innovations Report Wade PANW Palo Alto Networks 04/16/20 353.6% Stansberry Innovations Report Engel Please note: Securities appearing in the Top 10 are not necessarily recommended buys at current prices. The list reflects the best-performing positions currently in the model portfolio of any Stansberry Research publication. The buy date reflects when the editor recommended the investment in the listed publication, and the return shows its performance since that date. To learn if a security is still a recommended buy today, you must be a subscriber to that publication and refer to the most recent portfolio. --------------------------------------------------------------- Top 10 Totals 4 Stansberry's Investment Advisory Porter 3 Stansberry Innovations Report Engel/Wade 2 Retirement Millionaire Doc 1 Extreme Value Ferris --------------------------------------------------------------- Top 5 Crypto Capital Open Recommendations Top 5 highest-returning open positions in the Crypto Capital model portfolio Stock Buy Date Return Publication Analyst wstETH Wrapped Staked Ethereum 12/07/18 2,053.7% Crypto Capital Wade ONE/USD Harmony 12/16/19 1,119.7% Crypto Capital Wade BTC/USD Bitcoin 11/27/18 1,049.8% Crypto Capital Wade POLYX/USD Polymesh 05/19/20 1,048.6% Crypto Capital Wade MATIC/USD Polygon 02/25/21 850.1% Crypto Capital Wade Please note: Securities appearing in the Top 5 are not necessarily recommended buys at current prices. The list reflects the best-performing positions currently in the Crypto Capital model portfolio. The buy date reflects when the recommendation was made, and the return shows its performance since that date. To learn if it's still a recommended buy today, you must be a subscriber and refer to the most recent portfolio. --------------------------------------------------------------- Stansberry Research Hall of Fame Top 10 all-time, highest-returning closed positions across all Stansberry portfolios Investment Symbol Duration Gain Publication Analyst Nvidia^* NVDA 5.96 years 1,466% Venture Tech. Lashmet Microsoft^ MSFT 12.74 years 1,185% Retirement Millionaire Doc Band Protocol crypto 0.32 years 1,169% Crypto Capital Wade Terra crypto 0.41 years 1,164% Crypto Capital Wade Inovio Pharma.^ INO 1.01 years 1,139% Venture Tech. Lashmet Seabridge Gold^ SA 4.20 years 995% Sjug Conf. Sjuggerud Frontier crypto 0.08 years 978% Crypto Capital Wade Binance Coin crypto 1.78 years 963% Crypto Capital Wade Nvidia^* NVDA 4.12 years 777% Venture Tech. Lashmet Intellia Therapeutics NTLA 1.95 years 775% Amer. Moonshots Root ^ These gains occurred with a partial position in the respective stocks. * The two partial positions in Nvidia were part of a single recommendation. Editor Dave Lashmet closed the first leg of the position in November 2016 for a gain of about 108%. Then, he closed the second leg in July 2020 for a 777% return. And finally, in May 2022, he booked a 1,466% return on the final leg. Subscribers who followed his advice on Nvidia could've recorded a total weighted average gain of more than 600%. You have received this e-mail as part of your subscription to Stansberry Digest. If you no longer want to receive e-mails from Stansberry Digest [click here](. Published by Stansberry Research. You’re receiving this e-mail at {EMAIL}. 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