Be Greedy and Let Your High-Quality Winners Run

Stansberry Investor Hour

On this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan and Corey are joined by their colleague Whitney Tilson. Whitney is the lead editor on Stansberry's Investment Advisory – Stansberry Research's flagship newsletter – as well as Commodity Supercycles and his free e-letter Whitney Tilson's Daily. Once dubbed "The Prophet" by CNBC for his prescient calls, he joins the podcast to share some financial wisdom with listeners.

Whitney kicks off the show by talking about the value of attending investing conferences and other company meetings. You can gain insights, talk to fellow investors, share ideas, and either discover promising trends or discover which trends are "bombs." Whitney emphasizes that avoiding calamities is just as important as finding the next big investment idea. He shares his experience with short selling and how he actually lost a lot of money by employing the technique. This leads to a conversation about value traps – what they are and how they can lead to ruin. (1:24)

Next, Whitney details his storied history with Netflix and why he went from shorting the company to investing in it. Ultimately, he found a 90-bagger. But he sold the stock early and left money on the table. The "most important lesson" he learned from that experience is to let your winners run. As Whitney explains, that's why index funds outperform almost all active managers over a long period of time – because they never sell their winners. (16:40)

Finally, Whitney hammers home that investors should be selective with stocks and only buy the best-quality businesses. Many of these companies see large drawdowns at some point, which can be perfect buying opportunities... even if you're not able to find the exact bottom. Whitney predicts that Nvidia could see a sizable drop since the company is relatively young and volatile. After, he shares that value stocks, small-cap stocks, and international stocks are all at 20-plus-year lows. This extreme underperformance presents an opportunity for investors wanting to diversify their portfolios. And Whitney also breaks down how to spot a high-quality business that may be struggling in the short term versus a value-trap business that will only head lower. (35:02)