The Weekend Edition is pulled from the daily Stansberry Digest.

In mid-March, shares of social media giant – and Stansberry's Investment Advisory portfolio recommendation – Facebook (FB) plunged...

The move followed reports that the personal data of more than 50 million Facebook users had been improperly used as part of an effort to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Within a few weeks, Facebook's share price fell nearly 20%... shedding more than $98 billion in market value in the process. Worse, some analysts warned further declines were likely as users began to leave Facebook in droves.

But our founder Porter Stansberry and his team of analysts weren't worried. As they explained in last month's issue of Stansberry's Investment Advisory, published on April 6...

So it's time for us to recommend you sell the shares as well, right? Wrong. We sell when we hit our stop or when the story changes. Neither has happened in this case. Our fundamental thesis for owning Facebook shares remains intact...

Facebook's scale, growth, and profitability are truly in a class by themselves. And so as long as the news flow isn't so bad that a substantial number of users delete their accounts, we will want to own shares.

Our research suggests no such exodus is even close to occurring. Sure, we hear isolated anecdotes of "this advertiser leaving" or certain user groups pushing for change (including a #deletefacebook campaign that appears short-lived). And that might slow profit growth and soften user metrics, causing continued choppiness in the stock over the short term. But the long-term capital-efficient machine is intact. So for those with a longer-term investment outlook, Facebook remains a "buy"...

New data suggest Porter's team was exactly right...

According to a recent nationwide poll, the scandal has had little significant impact on Facebook users' behavior in the U.S. As news service Reuters reported earlier this month...

Most of Facebook's U.S. users have remained loyal to the social network despite revelations that a political consultancy collected information about millions of accounts without owners' permission, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sunday showed...

The national online poll, conducted April 26-30, found that about half of Facebook's American users said they had not recently changed the amount that they used the site, and another quarter said they were using it more. The remaining quarter said that they were using it less recently, had stopped using it or deleted their account.

That means that the people using Facebook less were roughly balanced by those using it more, with no clear net loss or gain in use...

Facebook shares have rebounded roughly 18% in just more than a month since Porter and his team published their update. As of Thursday's close, Stansberry's Investment Advisory subscribers are up about 60% in about 17 months so far.

Of course, regular readers know Porter is cautious on the stock market today...

In fact, he issued one of his strongest warnings to date last month. And yet, as you've seen, he and his team continue to recommend owning shares in a number of companies like Facebook.

If you're a new Stansberry Research reader, this advice could be confusing. It likely appears contradictory... or even negligent. But rest assured, it is neither. As Porter and his team explained in the latest issue of Stansberry's Investment Advisory, published May 4...

If you read Stansberry Digest, you know we're worried about the stock market. American companies have never owed more debt, relative to the size of the economy. Three times as many of the largest public companies in the U.S. can't afford the interest payments on their debt as before the last financial crisis. Several hundred of these "zombie companies" are destined for bankruptcy...

You should take steps to protect yourself. You should reduce your exposure to stocks to less than 60% of your portfolio. And you should own "portfolio insurance" by shorting these zombie companies...

that doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to invest in the stock market. The best businesses will survive. That's why we've been investing in elite businesses with world-class brands when they go on sale... No one can predict precisely when the bull market will end.

In other words, while they believe the end of the rally is near, it's hard to know for sure in advance...

And despite clear fundamental problems in both the equity and credit markets, nearly all of the reliable early warning indicators that have signaled prior bear markets continue to give the "all clear" for now.

The "Melt Up" could resume as Steve Sjuggerud predicts... And if it does, folks who sell all their stocks and move to cash too early are likely to regret it.

Instead, Porter and his team recommend a balanced approach...

Raise some cash. Hold some "hedges." But stay long high-quality, capital-efficient stocks – stocks that can do well no matter what happens next – and let your trailing-stop losses tell you when it's time to sell.

There may be no better example of the value of this advice than Porter's recommendation of Hershey (HSY)...

As longtime readers may recall, he originally recommended shares of the capital-efficient chocolate maker in December 2007.

This was just weeks into the most severe bear market since the Great Depression. Between November 2007 and March 2009, the U.S. stock market – as measured by the benchmark S&P 500 Index – plunged nearly 60%.

This was one of the worst times in history to recommend buying a stock. And yet, Stansberry's Investment Advisory subscribers who took his advice have done surprisingly well.

Despite the huge drop in the broad market, they were never stopped out of this position... and they've gone on to nearly triple their money to date. Better yet, they're now collecting an annual dividend "yield on cost" of around 6.5% and growing.

But Porter and his team aren't alone...

Our friend and TradeStops founder Dr. Richard Smith is also urging caution today. He says we're no longer in the phase of this bull market where "everything is going up."

Instead, Richard says investors need to be much more vigilant and selective now. And he says it is more important than ever to have a clear risk-management plan in place for every position you own.

Fortunately, this doesn't have to be difficult or complicated...

In fact, Richard says there is one simple yet surefire way to earn much more money, while taking less risk, in today's volatile markets... It works no matter the size of your portfolio and regardless of whether you're leaning bullish or bearish today.

It likely sounds too good to be true, but Richard says he has the data to prove it... Earlier this week, he hosted a live event to explain all the details. If you missed it, that's OK... For a limited time, you can watch the replay right here.

Regards,

Justin Brill

Editor's note: If you're ready to eliminate the guesswork from your investing and set your portfolio on the path to basically "set and forget" wealth, Richard can help... His TradeStops system will show you how to drastically improve the gains in your portfolio without buying any new stocks, using options, or employing any kind of leverage. Get all the details here.