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Every month or so, Keith Fitz-Gerald, Shah Gilani or a few of the other editors here at Money Map Press will wonder aloud if the big Wall Street investment banks have secreted a bunch of listening-device "bugs" in our offices or on our phones.
They haven't, of course. And our comments were made in jest – and meant only as a joke.
But the coincidences that prompt these surveillance-by-Big-Brother quips can be quite remarkable.
Let me share a brand-new story that shows you what I mean….
In a prior Private Briefing, we recommended the "Ultimate MacGyver Stock" – a promising "Miracle Materials" profit play called U.S. Silica Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SLCA).
When the stock market opened a few hours later, U.S. Silica shares skyrocketed as much as 4.9% after Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) analyst Matthew D. Conlan upgraded the stock from "Market Perform" to "Outperform."
I'm sharing this story not to gloat – but to illustrate that the strategies our experts use to identify investments really put you ahead of the big-money players on Wall Street. It also underscores that Private Briefing gives you access to the top recommendations from our band of gurus – the same recommendations they provide in the high-dollar advisory services they run for their exclusive subscribers.
And it gives us a chance to "advance" the U.S. Silica investment story by sharing some of the insights that Wells Fargo's Conlan used to make the case for U.S. Silica to the clients of his investment bank.
Remember: One of our main mantras here at Private Briefing is that, while we never follow Wall Street's lead, once we've made our recommendation (and you've had the chance to buy in), we're always glad to have the professional heavyweights spotlight the same opportunities – since we know that can help attract the big flows of liquidity needed to drive your holdings higher in price.
So let's take a look…
A Strong Work Ethic
We actually beat Wall Street to the draw on this stock by much more than just a few hours. To underscore just how far ahead of Wall Street we were on this call – and to set the scene for this story – I need to tell you a bit about the timeline involved in publishing an investment column like this one…
I work ahead on most columns, talking with each of our experts, reviewing their newsletters and investment "alerts" (the formal recommendations they publish for their paid subscribers), and tracking their portfolios. My goal: to bring you some of their very best ideas.
The U.S. Silica recommendation came from a series of conversations that I had over the past several weeks with Michael Robinson, our resident tech guru and the editor of the Nova-X Report and Radical Technology Profit advisory services. I finally wrote my version of Michael's recommendation late last week, and on Friday had it looked over by one of the in-house editors I trust a great deal.
The Monday Private Briefing is put together on late Friday.
This kind of thing happens all the time – which is why our experts like to joke that the big investment banks are "wired" into our best thinking.
About the Author
Before he moved into the investment-research business in 2005, William (Bill) Patalon III spent 22 years as an award-winning financial reporter, columnist, and editor. Today he is the Executive Editor and Senior Research Analyst for Money Morning at Money Map Press. With his latest project, Private Briefing, Bill takes you "behind the scenes" of his established investment news website for a closer look at the action. Members get all the expert analysis and exclusive scoops he can't publish... and some of the most valuable picks that turn up in Bill's closed-door sessions with editors and experts.
Bill, I think that you are underestimating the impact that your publication has on the markets. I don't know if that is on purpose or if you truly are clueless about it. I am pretty sure that you could take any single stock pick that you guys have made over the last year and within a couple of days the the stock has jumped. It may not have held those highs, but the initial impact was felt.