The Weekend Edition is pulled from the daily Stansberry Digest. The Only Number That Really Matters Is Price By Corey McLaughlin Often, the best lessons aren't taught in school... After all, most people I know never learned more than a few minutes of finance during their formative school years. I was an exception... Mr. Carpenter, my middle-school social studies teacher, went rogue on the state curriculum and taught us about stocks. He piqued my interest in investing when I didn't even know the value of what he was doing. For Mr. Carpenter's class, I set up a paper trade on payroll company Automatic Data Processing (ADP). A paper trade means you track a hypothetical position in a stock without spending real money – a great way to get some practice. I found Automatic Data Processing by starting at the beginning of the alphabet. It was the first company that seemed to have a meaningful purpose and a large market for its products and services. Everybody needs to get paid. When your stock made one of the class's highest returns of the week, you got to sit at the "winner's table" at the side of the room, in one of the fabric recliners around a circular table rather than a standard desk. This was the start of my investing knowledge and, for a while, the extent of it... I knew Mr. Carpenter lived in a house near the water in a nice part of town, and what he was teaching us sounded important. But I didn't fully grasp its value. I wish I did. My developing brain was more interested in girls and football. Many years later, I got into this industry... And I started learning a heck of a lot more about money and investing, thanks to smart people who knew what they were talking about – a journey that I eventually continued at Stansberry Research. It's one of the perks of the job. We never stop learning... For example, take my friend and colleague Greg Diamond's approach to the markets... Greg – a former Wall Street trader who was once responsible for nearly $1 billion per day of capital – has nailed each of the biggest turning points of the market over the past few years for his Ten Stock Trader subscribers. And, importantly, he recommended specific trades all along the way. Last year, for instance, in what was the worst year for the conventional 60/40 portfolio in generations, Greg posted an 83% win rate with his trades and average gains of nearly 25%. Now, Greg doesn't profess that anyone should allocate their entire portfolio to his trading strategy. Yet the bigger-picture view that comes with his brand of technical trading has proven useful for many of our subscribers when they think about the market. So when Greg makes a big, bold call, you really should hear him out... because you won't hear what he has to say anywhere else – and it has proven to be invaluable advice. I mention this because Greg came forward with his latest outlook earlier this week. He sees a "rare, historic move" coming to the markets in February 2024... one that he believes will catch 99% of investors off guard. And I believe him. Greg is one of those people you never stop learning from. Today, I want to highlight one part of his presentation in particular. It's an unexpected window into a very old way of looking at the markets... Introducing W.D. Gann... At no point in the days leading up to the debut of Greg's talk did I expect him to mention wheat prices in 1909 – and why they might be relevant today. Yet that's what he did this week. He was talking about legendary trader W.D. Gann, a pioneer of technical analysis who made a name for himself in the early 1900s. Gann grew up the son of a cotton farmer in Texas. He never attended high school and worked the family farm. Along the way, he became interested in the prices of livestock... and commodities, which eventually led to interest in trading in the stock market, too. He studied data about hog production, iron, and corn, which is how he first arrived at his theories about natural "cycles" in the markets. In 1919, Gann started publishing daily market letters and forecasts for stocks and commodities with reported 85% accuracy. Then, his unique methods of trading – rooted in ancient mathematics, geometry, and even astrology – became more widely known. Now, I realize this might sound out there... But then again, so might a lot of things people describe as "normal" today. As Greg explained, Gann was doing things way ahead of his time... Gann seems like an eccentric, yes, but only if you don't understand the logic behind his work... He tried to predict the stock market decades into the future by looking decades into the past. Computers hadn't been invented yet. But Gann studied cycles by manually looking up decades of price data. He pored over the archives at libraries in New York and London, going over the records of stock transactions as far back as 1820. Nobody else was doing this. Most notably, Gann predicted a market crash in 1929... Yes, that market crash... Gann did it in part by looking back at history and the panic of 1873, which you likely have never heard of (and even people back then had largely forgotten). He used the same approach beyond investing, too. He predicted when World War I would end. And he wrote a book in 1927 that many believe foresaw the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Eccentrics are eccentrics until they are right about important events. A Wall Street Journal profile published in 1910 also told a story about how Gann predicted things like the price of wheat – $1.20 – on a specific day a year in advance, using his analysis of price and cycles. As Greg shared in his presentation... Gann was a fascinating character and a successful trader. He reportedly left a $50 million fortune upon his death in 1955, though that's difficult to confirm. In any case, here's the point Greg was making, derived from Gann's farm-raised theories that have proven true... The only number that really matters for investors is price... and short-term prices are based on human emotions, which follow predictable cycles in certain stocks. Greg has since applied his own experience – first as a Wall Street trader and, in recent years, as an editor with Stansberry Research – and put these centuries-old ideas into action... This is how he was able to warn about a big market move in March 2020, three months before it happened and without knowing that a pandemic would be the trigger. It's how he called the top and bottom in stocks last year. And it's why he's so convinced another major market move is coming in early 2024. Even better, Greg has a game plan for making trades that could double in value right when these big moments are unfolding. Most folks will likely panic when they should be taking advantage of a prime market... or be overcome with greed at a time that calls for caution. But, hey, that's human nature. I'm feeling thankful... Maybe I'm getting bitten by the Thanksgiving bug too early... But I'm heartened by the information that I – and you – have access to today. Most folks have little to no knowledge of investing and finance. We're fortunate to be surrounded by folks with decades of experience and unique views on the markets. That's especially true as cycles repeat – and as irrational behavior surrounds us... For instance, millions of Americans are continuing to rack up more credit-card debt than ever, at interest rates north of 20%, when a recession could be ahead. Most would be better off trimming spending if at all possible... and listening to folks like longtime Stansberry Research editors Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig and Dan Ferris, who are urging folks to park cash in a Treasury bill yielding 5%. (By the way, this spending shift might be starting to play out already, based on data about consumer spending published on Wednesday. Retail sales dropped in October for the first time since March, albeit by a slim 0.1%... But that included a bigger slowdown in some areas that are sensitive to interest rates – like furniture, whose sales fell 2%.) If you've been paying attention, I'm sure you understand why consumers piling on liabilities might be a problem in the long run... both for them and for certain lenders and other businesses. But, when it comes to investing strategies, I still know a lot of readers are skeptics of technical analysis. You may not have even heard of the kind of research that Greg uses in particular... the kind that can make wheat prices in 1909 relevant today. As Greg said on Tuesday... Most people have no clue these cycles exist and how to anticipate them. If nothing else, if you tune into Greg's new video, your investing view might expand to include a different way (or two) of looking at the markets. So, watch the video here. It's totally free. I'm willing to bet you'll learn something. That's what I've been trying to do ever since I realized, too late for my liking now, the immense value of what Mr. Carpenter was trying to teach us... and the tools that will lead you to a seat at the "winner's table." Good investing, Corey McLaughlin Editor's note: Greg predicted the exact week of the 2020 crash... and the 2022 crash a day before it began. So make sure you catch his recent announcement before it goes offline. You'll learn the exact date in 2024 that Greg believes will see the biggest market move... Plus, you'll learn how he has combined W.D. Gann's century-old strategy with an all-new system for predicting stock prices – and how you could potentially double your money, over and over again, whether stocks go up or down. But you'll need to get the facts now to give yourself time to prepare for what's coming. Get the full details here. Tell us what you think of this content
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