Episode #509: Austin Root, Stansberry Asset Management – The Case For Productive Assets
Guest: Austin Root serves as the Chief Investment Officer of Stansberry Asset Management. Previously, he co-founded and led North Oak Capital, a hedge fund in New York that received strategic investment from Julian Robertson and Tiger Management.
Date Recorded: 11/1/2023 | Run-Time: 1:00:14
Summary: In this episode, Austin delves into the combination of financial planning and investment management. He starts by providing insights on private credit and describes himself as a tweener when it comes to investing. Austin also discusses the role of gold in portfolios and shares his views on various investment strategies.
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Links from the Episode:
1:02 – Welcome Austin to the show
4:17 – Overview of Stansberry Asset Management
6:20 – Surveying the current investment climate and evaluating treasury bonds
12:23 – Austin’s focus on owning productive assets
18:15 – Overview of private credit
26:42 – Committing capital to top-tier companies
28:20 – Weighing a quantitative method against a discretionary strategy
32:22 – Delving into the investment in Vita Coco
35:11 – Considering stocks beyond national borders
40:23 – Appraising gold and the value of tangible assets
45:35 – Investing Truths article
45:53 – Discussing Austin’s most unconventional viewpoint
53:54 – What’s Austin’s most memorable investment?
Learn more about Austin: Stansberry Asset Management
Transcript:
Welcome to the Meb Faber Show, where the focus is on helping you grow and preserve your wealth. Join us as we discuss the craft of investing and uncover new and profitable ideas, all to help you grow wealthier and wiser. Better investing starts here.
Disclaimer: Meb Faber is the co-founder and chief investment officer at Cambria Investment Management. Due to industry regulations, he will not discuss any of Cambria’s funds on this podcast. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Cambria Investment Management or its affiliates. For more information, visit cambriainvestments.com.
Meb: What’s up, everyone? We have a fascinating episode today with our guest, Austin Root, the Chief Investment Officer of Stansberry Asset Management. Previously, he co-founded and ran North Oak Capital, a New York-based hedge fund that received a strategic investment from Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. In today’s episode, Austin starts off by discussing the combination of financial planning and investment management. After giving a masterclass on private credit, he shares why he describes himself as a tweener when it comes to investing and talks about the role of gold in portfolios and much more. Please enjoy this episode with Austin Root.
Meb: Austin, welcome to the show.
Austin: Thanks, Meb. It’s great to be here. I’ve been a longtime listener, so I’m glad to be an active participant this time.
Meb: Where are you joining us from today?
Austin: I’m in Maryland, north of Baltimore in Towson.
Meb: Well, I had the pleasure of hanging out with you recently on a farm outside of Baltimore and then again in Las Vegas at a fantastic conference. There were some big names speaking there. Do any particular speakers stand out to you as being memorable?
Austin: I really enjoyed Rick Rule. I expected him to have a very negative outlook, but I found myself agreeing with most of what he said. It was refreshing to hear his perspective.
Meb: Rick is great. Listeners, he’s been on the podcast before and he has a fantastic quote about trading that I love. He talks about the “owl trade,” where you pick up the phone and tell your broker to sell a position, and the broker asks, “To who?” It’s a great analogy for when an asset is truly hated and there are no buyers.
Austin: Absolutely. Rick made some interesting points about the dollar being a terrible currency, but also the best performing currency over the last 30 years compared to other fiat currencies. It made me think about the need to invest in other productive assets instead of holding too much cash.
Meb: The conference had a great lineup of speakers, including Morgan Housel, Lance Armstrong, and Peter Zion. But I have to say, my favorite was the pickpocket, Apollo Robbins. Watching him was truly astonishing.
Austin: I was a little nervous watching him because he had been at Porter Stansberry’s firm the night before. I didn’t want to become part of his act.
Meb: He managed to take my coworker’s credit card out of his wallet without him noticing. It was incredible. But let’s dive into markets. There were a lot of diverse views at the conference, which is always interesting. I had the opportunity to watch your talk about your firm in Maryland, and I thought it was very thoughtful. Can you tell us a bit about Stansberry Asset Management and share your overall view of the current investment landscape?
Austin: Stansberry Asset Management, or SAM as we like to call it, focuses on providing a combination of holistic financial planning and informed active investment management. We believe this is a unique offering that is becoming increasingly harder to find for investors. In the past, financial planning and investment management were more closely aligned, but they have since diverged. On one hand, you have stock pickers and quants creating investment management products, and on the other hand, you have financial advisors focusing on wealth management without necessarily being involved in the investment decisions. Our goal is to bring these two elements back together and help clients build a long-term financial plan that aligns with their investment goals. We aim to have an active and informed view on most public markets, and we also explore opportunities in the private markets through external managers. Ultimately, we want to provide a comprehensive solution for our clients.
Meb: That sounds like a great approach. Now, let’s…
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