A Simple Strategy That Pays Big Rewards

Porter's Journal Issue #55, Volume #2

Author

Porter Stansberry
May 14, 2025

I Can Only Help People Who Are Ready To Help Themselves

This is Porter’s Daily Journal, a free e-letter from Porter & Co. that provides unfiltered insights on markets, the economy, and life to help readers become better investors. It includes weekday editions and two weekend editions… and is free to all subscribers.

How bad will it get before you realize there’s a real problem?… Call options allow you to hold huge blocks of stock… Understanding risk and profiting from volatility… A major insurance company loses 50% of its value… Porter’s Permanent Portfolio outperforms…

Table of Contents

While the recent volatility in the last month or so is a challenge for most investors, it also creates an opportunity. Today, we share a great way to make huge returns in a short period of time – without taking a lot of risk.

To explain how this is done, we’re sharing parts of an investment classic that Porter wrote nearly a decade ago, at Stansberry Research. For years, Porter’s musings in the Friday edition of the Stansberry Digest were essential reading… and this was one of his best.

This excerpt from a December 2015 Digest covers a topic that we have just recently begun to focus on at Porter & Co. It explains a strategy of selling puts for making big profits in distressed equity markets. We will be exploring more such trading strategies and techniques in Porter & Co.’s Trading Club, which we will be launching next month.

Here’s Porter in December 2015…

Please listen to me… There’s nearly $2 trillion worth of stocks whose bonds are trading for less than $0.80 on the dollar already. All of these stocks could go to zero if these bonds default.

Here’s the problem: I know the overwhelming majority of my subscribers won’t short stocks no matter what. As a result, their portfolios aren’t hedged at all to these massive risks.

But… I can’t help that.

I can only help people who are ready to help themselves. You have a great, talented team of honest analysts on your side, who come to work every day and try to figure out how to educate and motivate you. Just follow our lead.

Today, I just want you to learn one thing: The key to making money during distressed markets is to generate large amounts of income.

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