True Wealth Review – Stock Picks from Stansberry Research

About True Wealth

True Wealth from Stansberry Research is a monthly stock-picking newsletter. The service is run by editor Steve Sjuggerud and covers a pretty wide market range – everything from US stocks and ETFs to emerging markets and commodities. While the True Wealth system doesn’t specifically seek diversification, the broad focus of this service and the emphasis on ETFs means that it does a nice job of helping you build a diversified portfolio.

About Stansberry Research

Stansberry Research is an investment firm founded by Porter Stansberry in the mid-1990s. The firm publishes a number of stock picking and investment advice newsletters, including the flagship Stansberry’s Investment Advisory Review.

Stansberry Research doesn’t publicize long-term returns for most of its newsletters, which makes it difficult to gauge the success of the firm. The Investment Advisory Review, for example, has a number of long-term positions that have outperformed the stock market, but it also has an equal number of positions that have underperformed the broader market in recent newsletters.

Steve Sjuggerud, the founder and editor of the True Wealth newsletter, has a history of strong predictions. He correctly predicted the bottom of the real estate market in 2009 and recommended gold in the mid-2000s. Sjuggerud also runs a service similar to True Wealth, called True Wealth Opportunities: China, that focuses specifically on emerging investment opportunities in China. 

True Wealth Pricing Options

True Wealth costs $199 per year. You can try out the service for up to 30 days and get a full refund if you decide that it’s not right for you.

True Wealth Investing Style

The True Wealth service uses a mix of fundamental research and economic trend analysis to choose stocks. Many of the newsletters focus on broad patterns, like a movement towards gold as a safe-haven asset or a bump in the real estate market, to recommend a sector for investment. From there, True Wealth will recommend either an ETF or an individual company for investors.

This broad view of the market means that True Wealth covers much more than just US stocks. The newsletter frequently recommends international and emerging market stocks as well as stocks and ETFs that give you exposure to the commodities or real estate markets. While it may be harder for the lay investor to know exactly what they’re investing in when dealing with assets like international stock ETFs, this method does leave investors with a highly diversified portfolio.

The True Wealth portfolio typically contains between 10 and 20 stocks, and each comes with a stop loss recommendation. True Wealth does not recommend short positions. 

True Wealth Features

True Wealth, like many other stock picking services, is essentially just a monthly newsletter. Each newsletter is around 10 pages in length, but they’re surprisingly easy to read. Editor Steve Sjuggerud starts out with a short story or hypothetical before diving into the month’s investment thesis, which typically focuses in on a single country, industry, or market sector. These parables aren’t always seamless, but they do help make the newsletter much more approachable.

The bulk of the newsletter focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of the market in question. For example, in one monthly letter, Sjuggerud focuses on the unique factors that make China’s stock market ripe for entry despite the risks emerging from tensions with the US. The newsletter then goes on to suggest an ETF that offers broad exposure to the Chinese market and to highlight a single stock – Baidu, in this particular issue – that has the most growth potential with relatively low downside risk.

The newsletter finishes with a summary of all current positions. There are typically between 10 and 20 positions, and the newsletter will highlight any sell recommendations for past picks. All stock recommendations are paired with stop loss price, and these stop losses are updated each month. The newsletter also devotes a page to highlighting past months’ picks that are still primed for entry, either for new positions or to add to an existing position.

True Wealth vs. The Competition

True Wealth is an attractive newsletter. While there is no information about the service’s return since inception, most of the holdings in the portfolio when looking at past newsletters have returned between 15 and 35%. The time horizon for investment is typically around one to three years, so this is slightly better than the broader market’s returns. 

That said, True Wealth costs $100 more per year than The Motley Fool’s Stock Advisor newsletter. Both of these investment newsletters issue just one or two recommendations per month (Stock Advisor is always two per month), but Stock Advisor has a truly impressive historic return. That newsletter has returned more than 300% since inception, compared to around 75% for the S&P 500 over the same time period. That’s a significantly higher return than what True Wealth has generated.

Importantly, Stock Advisor only invests in US stocks, while True Wealth recommends a much wider range of assets. That can potentially make a big difference for investors who want protection in a downturn. Whereas Stock Advisor’s success hinges on the stock market, True Wealth may be buoyed by investments abroad or in recession-proof commodities like gold.

How Does True Wealth Stand Out?

True Wealth stands out as a relatively affordable and easy to follow stock picking newsletter. The service’s returns appear to beat the market with some consistency. Plus, the diversification that the service promotes may enable it to far outpace the market during a downturn. Since True Wealth doesn’t offer tools or analysis beyond the monthly newsletter, it doesn’t have much more to stand on than the strength of its picks. 

What Type Of Trader Is True Wealth Best For?

True Wealth is best for long-term investors who want to establish a diversified portfolio with US stocks, international stocks, ETFs, and commodities. True Wealth could even be combined with another US stock-specific stock picking service like Stock Advisor. While this would cost more, you could reap potentially high rewards from the US market while hedging your portfolio with alternative assets. The True Wealth newsletter doesn’t require much work on the part of investors, especially since most sales are facilitated by stop losses. 

Pros

• Relatively inexpensive monthly newsletter
• Diversified holdings include international stocks and commodities
• Newsletter is easy to read for lay investors
• Returns are typically better than broader market

Cons

• Lower returns than a comparable service like Stock Advisor
• Not much technical or fundamental analysis in newsletters