Porter Stansberry

In 2002, Stansberry sent out an email offering to sell for $1,000 the name of a company purportedly about to obtain a contract to dismantle nuclear weapons for Russia.[7] The Securities and Exchange Commission sued him in 2003[8] on this basis and for his newsletters containing "nothing more than baseless speculation and outright lies",[7] accusing him of a "scheme to defraud public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters."[1][7] The case went to trial in 2005,[9] and a federal court, upheld on appeal, found that Stansberry had sent out a newsletter to subscribers predicting one company's stock, USEC Inc., was going to increase by over 100%. Stansberry maintains that his information came from a company executive; the court ruled that he fabricated the source.[1] In 2007 a U.S. District Court judge ordered Stansberry and his investment firm, then called "Pirate Investor", to pay $1.5 million in restitution and civil penalties for defrauding "public investors by disseminating false information in several Internet newsletters."[8][9] The court rejected Stansberry's First Amendment defense, saying "Stansberry's conduct undoubtedly involved deliberate fraud, making statements that he knew to be false."[7]

At the time of the trial, many media outlets spoke out due to their views that the case was relevant to First Amendment rights. A group of newspaper publishers urged the Supreme Court[10] to reverse the decision by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that Stansberry was liable, and signed an Amici Curiae in defense of Stansberry. They claimed that a guilty verdict was "a significant threat to the free dissemination of news about the financial markets and specific investment opportunities" and could lead to a situation that "would be contrary to the spirit of our system of a free and independent press."[11] When the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, a New York Times editorial column noted that "the implications of the S.E.C.'s action are potentially profound: newspapers or Web sites promising their paying readers stock information that later turns out to be untrue suddenly leave themselves open to fraud charges. Any financial commentator who passes on bad information in good faith could be sued."[12]

Stansberry is the editor of the internet financial newsletters Porter Stansberry's Investment Advisory and Porter Stansberry's Put Strategy Report.[6] He also contributes regularly to Daily Wealth and The Growth Stock Wire, other Stansberry Research publications.[13]

He became the first American editor of the Fleet Street Letter, Britain's longest-running financial newsletter.[6][14] Stansberry is a frequent contributor to WorldNet Daily, an American web site that publishes news and associated content from the perspective of U.S. conservatives and the political right.

In June 2017, Stansberry Research Publications began publishing a financial/political online opinion magazine, American Consequences, which ostensibly is intended to be, "a new, online magazine about what's really happening in American finance… and what's about to happen next." The Editor in Chief is libertarian journalist, humorist and commentator, P. J. O'Rourke. Stansberry is listed as a contributing editor. The free publication includes many ads for Stansberry publications and seminars.