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Frank Porter Stansberry is an American financial publisher. Stansberry founded Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, a private publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1999. There, he writes a monthly newsletter, Stansberry's Investment Advisory, which deals with safe value investments. In 2012 Stansberry launched Stansberry Radio, which is distributed on iTunes and is currently in the top ten investment podcasts each week. Stanberry is also the creator of the 2011 online video and infomercial titled "End of America" (77 min). Commercials advertising Stansberry's "End of America" video have been featured on an array of U.S. media outlets.

Career
In 1999 he founded Stansberry & Associates Investment Research, a private publishing company based in Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently 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 & Associates publications.

Stansberry & Associates publishes investment research. Agora Inc., Stansberry & Associates’s parent company, states that S&A has subscribers in more than 100 countries.

Stansberry started his career as a financial copywriter for a research and publishing house, a job he described as “thankless.” He worked his way up writing successful sales letters. One letter made about $1.5 million for his employers in six months, and another package brought in 600% over break-even on test mailings.

He became the first American editor of the Fleet Street Letter, Britain’s longest-running financial newsletter. He eventually opened his own financial advisory. Stansberry said the secret to his success was having a “big idea”:

“…that's why my copy works. What I write sells because the main idea behind my package is so exciting that people would buy even if I were a terrible writer. The hard part is doing the research required to find a new "Big Idea." You know it when you find it, though. It's huge, it's valuable, and it makes you want to tell other people about it.”

In addition to his company’s publications, Stansberry is a columnist at Townhall.com. He writes regularly at the Personal Liberty Digest, The Daily Crux, and other publications.

He has been interviewed on Yahoo! Finance’s Tech Ticker, Radio America, the Off the Grid podcast, and Alex Jones’ InfoWars radio show.

United States
Stansberry's 2011 online video and infomercial titled "End of America" paints a very grim picture of the financial future of the United States. The 77-minute video forecasts the end of America's global economic dominance, which Stansberry predicts will ultimately result in rioting and protests across the country.

In the video and other articles and interviews, Stansberry warns that the American dollar will stop being accepted as the global currency, and that in fact this process has already started. He criticizes high U.S. government debt as a cause for this. To prepare for the economic collapse, he advises stocking up on gold and silver, moving assets abroad, and pursuing bearish investment strategies. He also advises stocking up food, water, and other basic supplies away from urban areas.

Financial website The Motley Fool concluded that “Stansberry’s core argument is sound….although it’s not quite as dire as he would like you to believe.”

Stansberry takes a consistently bearish view of the economy, arguing that stock-market growth reflects inflationary momentum rather than real economic recovery, and that current stability in the U.S. Treasury market is a bubble.

Europe
Stansberry’s analysis of the European economy focuses on the Union's unsustainable debts. He argues that E.U. governments have pledged more of their treasuries’ money to support banks and bailouts than they can pay. As a result, the Euro is likely to fail due to the Eurozone's insolvency. “Sooner or later, the taxpayers will say ‘enough’ and the whole thing will unravel,” he wrote in a follow-up to “End of America”.

In an August, 2011 online debate with James Altucher, Stansberry predicted that Europe's debt crisis would intensify in the coming year, with Italy's Unicredit being "the next big domino to fall." Stansberry predicted that once Unicredit fell, Germany would not bail it out, and that Germany would leave the European Union within the next twelve months (by August, 2012).[ Additionally, Stansberry predicted that the U.S. Dollar would lose its reserve status and the U.S Treasury "bubble" would burst. In light of these oncoming financial calamities, Stansberry recommended that investors convert their assets to 50% gold and 50% cash, if they were not willing (or able) to actively short stocks.

SEC Controversy
In 2002, the SEC subpoenaed Porter Stansberry's company as well as parent company Agora, Inc. for the names and address of every single subscriber of each company's database. Stansberry's company filed a protective order citing the first amendment. The order succeeded in Maryland courts but failed in federal courts.

In 2003, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a claim against Stansberry for a "scheme to defraud public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters." The SEC alleged that Stansberry had sent out a newsletter to subscribers, predicting one company's stock was about to soar. Stansberry maintains that his information came from an company executive; the SEC claimed that he fabricated the source. The company's stock price did increase for the reasons Stansberry had pinpointed, but about a month later than Stansberry had predicted. 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 argument that his speech was protected by the 1st Amendment, stating "Stansberry's conduct undoubtedly involved deliberate fraud, making statements that he knew to be false."

The case's outcome drew criticism from major publications. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times both published editorials criticizing the courts’ decision. The New York Times stated, “Mr. Stansberry’s actions might seem unorthodox or even unethical by the standards of most reputable publishers, but that does not make them illegal. The implications of the S.E.C.’s action are potentially profound… Any financial commentator who passes on bad information in good faith could be sued.”