The Significance of Today: A Personal Reflection on Wealth and Investing

Aug 12, 2021

An Open Letter On The Significance Of Today

I believe that each and every one of us is here for a very specific purpose. None of us are here by accident.

I believe that God has a plan for each of our lives, and that we are exactly who we are, and exactly where we are, because of why we are.

Tonight’s essay is a very personal one for me.

But it’s also extremely relevant for subscribers and readers who have been following the story of Gold Is A Better Way, The Great Devaluation, and Brentwood Research since inception.

I thank you in advance for allowing me to share my story, and sincerely hope it will also add meaning and perspective for you personally, as well.

I’d like to remind readers of the long term vision of Brentwood Research -- one that began three years ago today.

This is because when we can assign real meaning to something, it becomes far more valuable.

Three years ago this week, our first book Gold Is A Better Way was published. That same week, Brentwood Research was officially formed, and we held our very first webinar event, attended by a total of 82 people.

Since that momentous moment three years ago, we have produced two #1 national bestselling books (Gold Is A Better Way, and The Great Devaluation), created viral webinars and presentations seen by more than 1,000,000 people, and built a VIP subscriber base with thousands of members who are avid readers of our monthly newsletter, Full Faith and Credit while our free subscriber base has grown to almost 100,000 readers -- all without spending a single dollar on paid marketing for Brentwood Research.

Tens of thousands of readers will be reading this blog tonight, which is both amazing and humbling for me at the same time.

Yet despite these accomplishments (which have far exceeded my personal expectations), there is a significantly more meaningful reason as to why today is so important for me.

August 12, 2018 is the day that my Mom passed away.

Today, while I feel great sadness for a truly incredible woman who the world has lost, I am also filled with gratitude and appreciation to my amazing mother.

To be clear, my Mom was not what you’d consider a “well versed” investor. In fact, she didn't fully comprehend many of the economic issues which I am so passionate about and discuss regularly.

True story: when she proofread my first draft of Gold Is A Better Way six months before she passed away, she told me, “Adam, I really loved it, but there *was* a lot I didn’t understand.”

Now, what my mom lacked in book smarts, she more than overcame in people smarts. She was one of the wisest people I have ever known. Her wisdom came from her empathy, her love of others, and her deep ability to see the world from everyone else's point of view.

My mom also knew me better than anyone. So when she said these words to me, I was very curious what she would say next. I will never forget that advice, because I believe her wisdom is the secret to the success of Brentwood Research, and is why our readership continues to grow to this day.

She said, “As I see it, this book is all about having a ‘wealth mindset.’ That is the thing that I know you are passionate about sharing with others. It’s why you are who you are, and what you should focus on. This is what you were meant to do, Adam.”

At that moment, I was reminded of my core beliefs.

That moment also defined what has become the overarching purpose of Brentwood Research, and remains at the heart of our core beliefs today.

It was after the first draft of the book was completed in spring of 2018 that my partners and I devoted ourselves to the idea of building Brentwood Research, a publishing company that would focus on educating investors the importance of having a wealth mindset.

The origin story of Brentwood Research is relevant to understanding the journey and the value we continue to strive to provide.

Since I’m a partner in Advantage Gold, a precious metals firm that specializes in helping long term investors diversify their portfolios, the initial focus of Brentwood Research was to provide a research arm for Advantage Gold.

Our goldisabetterway.com platform was designed specifically for gold investors and to answer the question of “why” for physical precious metal investors.

As such, while Brentwood Research has focused on the “why gold”, Advantage Gold has remained focused on teaching people “how” to own physical precious metals.

The firm was founded, interestingly enough, in August of 2014, and just turned seven years old this past week. Since then, Advantage Gold has become the highest-rated precious metals firm in the world (due in large part to Brentwood Research and the value we are able to provide our clients).

We believe that before someone can seek the “how” to own gold, they first need to understand the “why” to own physical gold.

Most firms choose to market gold as a “doomsday asset,” using fear as a driver. They say it’s something to own when the world falls apart (which, according to ‘them’ seems to always be the case). It means that most of the precious metals brokerages in the country are transactional, relying on emotion to drive their business.

We chose to take a different approach. At Advantage Gold, we believe that physical precious metals are a long term decision, not a trade.

In fact, because our clients are mostly buying gold within their long term retirement accounts, we believe the choice to buy precious metals should be educated and all options heavily considered before any decision is made.

The unique value we provide our clients is in helping investors to consider wealth preservation, not just creation. Most retirement plans are paper plans that only permit paper assets. Our specialty at Advantage Gold is in helping clients understand the benefits of a Self-Directed IRA, which allows the holding of both physical and paper assets, and teaching how precious metals can help to diversify a long term investment portfolio.

Most people are shocked when they learn that gold has doubled the performance of stocks and bonds over the last 20 years. This reality runs counter to every piece of information most investors receive from Wall Street.

This is why we ultimately began Brentwood Research.

The Gold Is A Better Way book and online platform were specifically designed to help educate long term investors about the “why,” and how to think about the world and the importance of having a long term financial plan. Brentwood Research initially focused on helping investors understand the benefits for diversifying the portfolio with tangible, non-correlated assets in both form and performance, specifically precious metals of gold, silver and platinum.

Initially, our content was focused exclusively on precious metals.

But the wise words of my mother have remained a constant reminder and guide. They have driven our purpose. Our focus at Brentwood Research became accumulating a Wealth Mindset.

What started as information on precious metals soon expanded.

The content we were producing almost immediately ran into bigger discussions surrounding the dollar, the Federal Reserve, and the global macroeconomy as a whole. They soon grew even further, diving into psychology and mindset and how to have a process for success.

The more we focused on the building of wealth, the more people found their way to our program. One year after the formation of Brentwood Research we held a summit titled The Great Devaluation, which talked about the history of investment and what we believed was the turning of a supercycle and the beginning of a monetary reset. Just one year after having 82 people attend our first webinar, this summit was attended by more than 10,000 people!

The presentation led to the publishing of our second #1 national bestseller, The Great Devaluation. It's a book that strives to remind investors of the folly of investing in massively overvalued assets built on the back of debt. It highlights an unfortunate reality: mankind continues to make the same mistakes over and over (and over) again.

We believe we are in the midst of another such mistake. We believe that extreme debt and deficits, while always a short term expedient recipe approved by politicians and loved by short term investors, are actually a recipe for long term pain and loss.

It turns out that this story has never been more relevant than it is today. It's a fact that we continue to be reminded at Brentwood Research as we continue to explode in growth organically, without one penny of paid front-end marketing since our inception.

This natural, organic response of smart, long term, wealth minded investors finding their way to us has confirmed the need for our perspective, and reminds us every day why we are so committed to telling this story.

The world of investing is missing something important: a responsible voice. That’s why, on a day that is so special to me, I wanted to share this personal story.

There is zero doubt in my mind that extreme deficit spending occurring around the globe is unsustainable. Additionally, I have no doubt that this extreme deficit spending is going to continue to get far worse. Finally, I am personally 100% certain that gold prices will be dramatically higher seven years from now.

Seven years from now will amount to 10 years from the publishing of Gold Is A Better Way. I remain committed and optimistic about the conclusion of that book that gold would outperform equities by a margin of 8 to 1 in the next decade.

We are now three year in.

I began buying physical gold three years ago. Nearly every month since that time I have purchased more. It began as me wanting to be authentic. I had just published a book called Gold Is A Better Way, and I wanted my actions to be representative of my words.

I believe that our thoughts lead to words, which lead to actions, which lead to habits, which lead to character, which lead to destiny.

Buying gold physically is now a habit.

If you are a gold trader today, things may look really bad.

One year ago today, the price of gold hit $2000 per ounce. Today, gold closed at $1750 per ounce. This means that in the last year the price of gold has dropped 12.5%. Not surprisingly this recent downturn has led to some of the most bearish sentiment for gold in decades with 83% of forecasters bearish on gold.

Future forecasts are even worse. The last time forecasters were this bearish on gold was in December of 2016, when the price of gold sank to $1056 per ounce.

It’s why many impatient gold traders are throwing in the towel. They are focused on the things that true long term investors are not. Rather than consider the three year outperformance of gold and where gold is headed over the next seven years, traders instead look at gold being down while everyone else is “getting rich” trading.

What few remember is that extreme bearish sentiment most often leads to explosive upside gains.

Analysts in 2016 were calling for gold prices to drop below $700 per ounce, many were predicting as low as $300 per ounce. Back then gold was a pet rock that only crazy people would invest in. Analysts from the top investment banks were calling for the end of gold in unison.

By the end of 2017, just one year later, gold prices were higher by roughly 30%. Since that time, gold prices are up 75%. That’s an average of 15% per year over the last five years, and at a time when interest rates on the 10 Year Treasury have averaged roughly 2%.

So while many preach gold solely as an “insurance policy” to own when things are bad, it continues to outperform the market even while things in the market are great. Which makes us ask, what happens when things do actually get bad?

For those who may be students of history, extreme bearish sentiment is almost always the catalyst for dramatically higher prices. It’s only when the weak hands have all given up that the strong hands witness the greatest returns. As the legendary Warren Buffett says, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

This is why we must never forget our purpose and our long term goals.

It’s precisely why I have used the most recent pullback in gold prices to load up on one of my biggest purchases of physical precious metals (Gold and Platinum) ever.

But this is just the beginning.

I believe The Great Devaluation has only just begun, and that massive opportunities exist not only in physical precious metals, but in commodities, value stocks, and other new strategies to grow wealth in the midst of the existing monetary reset. It has become the mission of Brentwood Research to continue to expand on the story.

The next stage of our progression is already underway.

In the coming months we will reveal an entirely new investment model, focused on the preservation of wealth and ideas on how to position for long term growth. We believe this model will dramatically outperform the 60/40 portfolio model so widely held today. It already has.

On a very meaningful day, I wanted to write a meaningful note and continue the promise we set out to achieve three years ago today.

While no one can know the future, it’s comforting to know that we can always remember the past, and to remind ourselves of our purpose and who we are and are designed to be.

Best,

Adam Baratta

Editor in Chief - Brentwood Research Founder - Advantage Gold