Is Mike Barrett’s 10X Investor Service Legit? (Review)

I recently stumbled upon a Stansberry Research presentation featuring Mike Barrett, who talked about a “ten-bagger” stock he’s interested in, which he shares with members of 10X Investor.

It was an interesting presentation, and I was curious about whether or not the service was worth joining. So I took a closer look, and in this review, I’ll show you what I learned.

What Is 10X Investor and How Does It Work?

10X Investor is an investment advisory service edited by Mike Barrett of Stansberry Research, and the goal of the service is to help subscribers make ten times their money in three to five years by investing in stocks with high upside potential.

The types of opportunities Mike recommends revolve around smaller companies that produce products still in the early stages of development. In particular, Mike Barrett focuses on investments where the company owns a type of intellectual property.

As Mike points out in a recent presentation, the small companies he recommends don’t necessarily have a patent, and some don’t even have products yet.

However, Mike says they are creating things that have never existed before or doing things within existing industries that “nobody ever imagined possible.”

Here’s how Mike Barrett puts it:

In short: There’s an entirely new class of tiny companies most people have never heard of before… often with just a handful of employees.

They don’t necessarily have a physical product. And in the beginning, sometimes they don’t even make money!

Instead they create compounds… or business structures… or systems… or even minor components… all of which might be worthless on their own, but which can launch billion-dollar industries overnight, or revitalize old ones.

So 10X Investor is all about investing in companies that are at the very early stages of developing potentially game-changing innovations – before the masses pile in.

And according to Stansberry Research, you don’t need to be an accredited investor to follow Mike’s recommendations, which means the service recommends regular stocks.

The Stansberry Research website also states that 10X Investor is “Very Speculative” and that the portfolio is “designed for long–term, aggressive–oriented capital.”

In other words, the service caters to investors who are seeking opportunities with a potentially high-risker/high-reward profile.

So if you’re goal is to invest in established companies with a large market capitalization, this service may not suit you.

As Stansberry explains, the stocks inside the 10X Investor portfolio “tend to be volatile” compared to more established companies in the S&P 500 Index. And that is true for any company with a small market cap because the lower the market cap, the more volatile the stock can be.

Volatility works both ways, though, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just means you need to carefully consider the potential risks and rewards and decide what’s right for you.

In any case, according to Stansberry Research, to mitigate the risk as much as possible, Mike Barrett “screens for 10x ideas using a proven five–step system that includes estimating each company’s intrinsic value potential.”

What does Mike’s strategy involve?

Mike Barrett doesn’t reveal the “proprietary five-step system” he uses to identify the opportunities he recommends to subscribers of 10X Investor.

However, the Stansberry Research website does state that part of Mike’s strategy involves occasionally meeting with CEOs and going to company headquarters and that he invests in these companies when they’re “still small, cheap, and relatively new.”

As a subscriber of 10X Investor, you get more insight into how the strategy works and access to Mike Barrett’s latest recommendations, along with the details behind each pick.

From there, it’s up to you to decide which stocks you will invest in. Either way, there’s no guarantee Mike’s stock picks will help you 10X your money within three to five years, but that’s the goal. And based on his track record, it seems he must be doing something right.

Who Is Mike Barrett?

Unlike most gurus I come across in the financial education space, Mike Barrett is not a former money manager or Wall Street analyst, nor does he have a history in finance.

Instead, the Stansberry Research website describes Mike Barrett as a “60-year-old man who grows pecans” on a 5-acre farm in central Florida.

And his background is in commercial real estate appraisal.

According to his profile on the Stansberry Research website, Mike has a degree in Agricultural Engineering, an MBA, and MAI and SRA designations from the Appraisal Institute.

Aside from real estate, Mike Barrett appears to have achieved success as a self-directed investor and joined Stansberry Research’s Extreme Value service over a decade ago.

Extreme Value is a value-investing advisory service that was first launched in 2002 and is edited by Dan Ferris. It’s much less speculative compared to 10X Investor, too.

And that appears to be why Stansberry Research refers to this service as a “sister publication” and a “perfect complement” to 10X Investor. Not only is it less speculative, but Mike Barrett has worked with Dan Ferris as the lead analyst of Extreme Value for over ten years.

These roles now appear to be reversed because instead of Mike helping Dan with Extreme Value, Dan Ferris is helping Mike Barret with 10X Investor.

In any case, Mike Barrett may not be the usual Stansberry Research analyst given his background is in real estate, but Extreme Value has a solid track record, which Mike is a big part of. And according to Stansberry, he’s recommended some great stocks over the years.

What Are Mike Barrett’s Stock Picks?

10X Investor is a brand new service, so it is too early to tell how well it has performed. However, Mike does appear to have made some remarkable predictions in recent years.

According to Stansberry Research, he predicted the 2020 stock market crash, the market bottom shortly after, and has invested in numerous triple and quadruple-digit stocks.

For example, a recent Stansberry Research presentation states that Mike recommended a company called Innovative Industrial Properties in 2018 when it was trading at $48 per share, invested in Annovis Bio, which made him “up to 20 times his money in 7 months,” and made “up to 19 times his money in just over a year and a half” with Kodiak Sciences.

The site also talks about some “ten-baggers” he’s recommended, which nobody outside of Stansberry Research knew were his calls. For example, Grow Generation and Silvergate.

These last two picks appear to be related to Mike Barrett’s intellectual property investment strategy, where he finds smaller companies that he believes have some type of intellectual property that could give them a competitive advantage in the years ahead.

And according to the presentation, Mike’s latest recommendation has to do with a company that has “has figured out the missing technology” for self-driving cars.

Mike has uncovered a very small new company who owns the intellectual property for a technology that could soon do for the auto industry what Apple did for computers.

In short: This little company has figured out the missing technology for one of the most exciting and promising new industries:

Self-driving cars.

Mike doesn’t reveal the name of this company in the presentation. Instead, he reveals the name of the company and the reasons why he’s interested in it to members of 10X Investor.

All told, he says there are ten intellectual property stocks he’s interested in right now that are listed in the model portfolio, which you get access to as a subscriber of the service.

What Do You Get If You Join 10X Investor?

Mike Barrett’s stock recommendations are at the core of the 10X Investor service.

As of writing, the Stansberry Research website states that there are ten “intellectual property stocks” within the model portfolio, and each recommendation comes with a summary from Mike on how he values the company and why he believes it has 10X potential.

It’s unclear how often new recommendations are released, but unlike most services I look into, it doesn’t appear as though there’s a new stock pick each month.

Instead, new recommendations are released as Mike Barret identifies them. I can understand why some might be put off by this, but I actually think this is a good thing.

Why? Because as I explain in this article about stock advisories, some services are less focused on helping subscribers and more focused on selling subscriptions. And the idea of making a new recommendation each month is more or less a “selling point.”

The problem with that is that, because the service needs to meet the “monthly recommendation quota,” the editor may fall into the trap of suggesting new opportunities for the sake of doing so, rather than when they find a genuinely good opportunity.

In any case, on top of the stock picks, subscribers receive quarterly updates on the portfolio, “warnings and predictions” from Mike Barret on where he sees the market heading, and if you subscribe through the presentation Mike does with Tom Mustin, there are some bonuses.

One bonus is a research report called “The Ten-Bagger Secret: How to Make 10 Times Your Money on the Best Intellectual Property” that walks you through Mike’s strategy for investing in intellectual property opportunities.

Another bonus is the “Alliance Briefings,” which consists of two videos from Dan Ferris on investing.

And the last bonus is a free 12-month subscription to Dan Ferris’ Extreme Value service.

How much does it cost to join 10X Investor?

According to the Stansberry Research website, 10X Investor normally costs $5,000 per year. However, if you join through the presentation, it costs $2,000 for 12 months.

Can you get a refund?

Stansberry Research doesn’t offer a cash refund on 10X Investor. Instead, they give you 30 days to try the service, and if you’re not satisfied, you can get a “credit refund” to use on another service.

Is 10X Investor a Legitimate Service?

I don’t believe 10X Investor is a scam based on my research.

Mike Barrett is not as well-known as some “gurus” out there, but he has been the lead analyst for Extreme Value for over ten years. Granted, Extreme Value is a different service focused on entirely different types of investments, but it appears to have a strong track record.

Not to mention, Stansberry Research is a legitimate company. They have a large subscriber base from all over the world and have been in the investment advisory business for decades.

That said, I think it’s important to understand that, as with any advisory service, there are no guarantees you’ll make money by following the recommendations.

All investments carry risk, so anything could happen when you’re speculating in the stock market, especially when it comes to betting on smaller companies.

The payout potential could be exciting if you’re right about the types of companies Mike Barrett recommends. However, this is one of Stansberry Research’s most speculative advisories, so there is also the chance you could lose some (or all) of your investment.

Hopefully, that doesn’t happen, but you shouldn’t rush into this expecting to 10X your money or without understanding that there are risks involved.

Bottom Line: Should You Join?

On the one hand, 10X Investor could be worthwhile if you’re interested in investing in smaller, more speculative stocks with “ten-bagger” potential in the years ahead.

As mentioned, 10X Investor is a brand new service, so it doesn’t have an established track record, but Mike Barrett appears to have recommended some great opportunities connected to Extreme Value. And from what I understand, Dan Ferris is contributing to the 10X Investor service, too.

So my point is that you could learn about some high-potential stocks as a subscriber of the service and use what you learn to navigate the market ups and downs.

On the other hand, this isn’t exactly Stansberry’s cheapest advisory service, nor is it the most conservative. In fact, 10X Investor is one of the company’s most speculative services. So this service is not likely to suit the more risk-averse investors out there.

Either way, whether the service is suitable for you or not will depend on your goals, investing preferences, and risk tolerance, among other factors. Hopefully, what I’ve shared helps you make a more informed decision, but ultimately only you can decide what’s right for you.