And they're wondering about that dichotomy. Richard Smith: Yeah. Porter Stansberry: And, listen, where is it now? Thirty cents? Yeah, it's probably not done well for people. You have to understand: I can appreciate a great story and I can also appreciate a great investment.
And what I have learned over the years is: most great investments have a very boring story. And most great stories have a very bad investment outcome. And as a publisher, people are wanting to read great stories. And we find them for them. And they don't always end up as a disaster. For example, there was a natural gas company in Papua New Guinea that said they had the largest – somebody's typing on their mic. Richard Smith: Yeah, sorry. That's me. I was trying to get into TradeStops to find the volatility on Nautilus Minerals. Porter Stansberry: Well, we had InterOil, which was the story was: Someone found the world's largest natural gas deposit in a jungle in Papua New Guinea. And it sounded very much like the Nautilus story. Except for in this case, we sent the geologist out to Papua New Guinea, he saw the test well, and he was blown away. It looked like a dang jet engine pouring out of a mountain. I mean, it was an incredible natural gas well. And that ended up being sold to ExxonMobil for billions and billions of dollars. So sometimes the stories work out great. And sometimes of course they end up like Nautilus. My point is that if you use the newsletter's position sizing and you use a trailing stop, you can invest in these great ideas, some of which will work out and some of which won't. And your returns over time will be fine. But what I know happens is that people fall in love with these stories and they do dumb things like put half their portfolio in Nautilus Minerals and tell themselves they're going to give it to their grandkids. And I'm sorry, but that's not our fault. Because that is not at all what we suggested you should do. Richard Smith: And that's where TradeStops comes in to help. Because you look in and you see the volatility quotient on Nautilus Minerals at 75% and it's an eye-opener, right? You go, "Oh, okay. This isn't a stock I put half my portfolio into. I'm willing to risk $1,000 on Nautilus Minerals." Porter Stansberry: Yup. That sounds about right. Richard Smith: "That means if I'm wrong, I lose $1,000." So it can either be an all-or-nothing bet, or you can go in, and let's say it has a 50% VQ – you say, "I can invest $2,000, and if that $2,000 investment falls 50%, I'm down $1,000, I take my lumps, I move on to the next idea." That's a smart way to be in highly-speculative opportunities like that, because you only need to make about one out of 10 of them work, right? [Laughs]. Porter Stansberry: Yeah. And some of them do work out great. Seabridge Gold went up, I don't know, 700%, 800%, 900%. Richard Smith: Incredible story. Porter Stansberry: Yeah. And so we do hit some of these home runs. Regeneron – Dave Lashmet – one of his best picks ever went from $12 to over $600. I mean, you don't have to have many of those, and you actually don't have to have much money in them, to do really well. Let's say you got a $100,000 portfolio, you might put up to $2,000 in a stock like that, and if you make 12 times your money, great. You just made a 25% return on your total portfolio from 1 small pick. That's a great result. But of course you know what happens, Richard. A lot of people think they're investors, but what they really are is gamblers.
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AuthorRobert is a blogger, novelist and passionate reader. He is a online casino addict, vegan, hiphop head, reclaimed wood collector. Producing at the nexus of art and programing to save the world from bad design. He sometimes makes random things with friends and thinking over table side bets – are they worth it? Archives
March 2019
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