Alternative Investments, Financial Survival Information, Surviving Financial Collapse

Alternative investments, financial survival information, and surviving financial collapse have become a main form of financial discussion today. Normally relegated to the sideshow of any main stream financial media, now these ideas are defining the playing field.

Alternative investments include anything outside of the mutual fund, bonds, S&P500 stocks, and annuity environment. Gold, silver, metals, commodities, currencies, farm land, and certain forms of corporate bonds fall into the general purview of the alternative investment arena. There are many ways to get into this pool, that go beyond any market traded investments and that can preserve wealth.

Financial survival information takes the focus from strictly growth, profit and dividends or cash flow to the more basic requirement of getting our money back or wealth preservation. Inflation, hyperinflation, currency collapse, bank closures, currency controls, price controls, and possibly currency shortages fall under this classification. The U.S. and much of the world has had a slow motion inflation in progress for many decades. Now the engine is revved for much higher rates of inflation to hyperinflation and complete destruction of both currencies and the banks.

Surviving financial collapse has become a central topic across the blogosphere. With Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Latvia, Hungary, and others falling into economic isolation and shut off from the markets, this is a key topic to address for learning how to navigate these dangerous waters. The primary difficulty is choosing which currency to move to. How to move currencies can be challenging becomes all governments are thieves, and criminal and want to keep our money in their system.

The Financial Survival Center focuses on these economic collapse issues, providing strategies, resources, links, and analysis for predicting when the collapse will hit and what to do to protect ourselves.

Saxena Goes Off Gold and Silver

Just listened to Goldseek radio with Chris Waltzek and a Puru Saxena interviewed. Puru is a worldy, wise, and successful investor. Generally I see eye to eye with him, but this time he has come out strongly against gold and silver.
Partially because he is willing and able, because of Hong Kong tax laws, to buy and sell gold and silver with the seasons.

All of us who have been in the market for a while know that you can sell after March and buy back in around August and often bank quite a gain and avoid the major loss. I have to sit through this because I am not using trading vehicles.

Saxena wants out of gold and silver for good, thinking that the ETF's will do much better. I think short term, he is probably correct. Long term, I am not so certain. The food commodity cycle will peter out earlier than the PM's which tend to lag in the commodities market. He also believes the central banks and IMF will be able to crush the PM bull market.

That has generally proven to not be the case. He might be right, but I am putting my money in the PM's for the long haul. Energy is better right now, food is better right now, but gold and silver will be better later.

Puru...this time you may be right, but in the future, I think you may regret it.

Just about to Pull the Trigger on Silver and Gold, When..

I read some fantastic analysis from the eminent Frank Barbera and decided to ride the metals lower before purchasing. Also held back somewhat on purchasing a few mining shares. Probably will dive in shortly even though the market as a whole has all the gusto of Michael Moore running a marathon - downright sickly.

Whether goes the market, initially go the PM's stocks. Sadly for the jr's, they will be swept up like dust by the majors for penny's in the pound of good earth they hold.

Speaking of criminal enterprises, the shaft given to freedom and Ron Paul is one for the hall of shame for government corruption. He was completely ignored by the corpgovmedia, and had the votes redirected from him at every opportunity.
Worst of all, the average American can't think straight enough to see that he was the only candidate that could right this country and get us back to a free U.S. versus the police and war state we have become.

Sadly, all of this is good news for the gold and silver investor as the printing presses will run non-stop.

James Turk of Goldmoney fame, commented that he does not believe the silver bull market even begins until we retouch $50! That means we could rise 10 fold from there - up to a mind blowing $500 per oz of silver. That would give us the return of the century.

Let us all hope James Turk is correct -as he usually is.

Action items for all:
Buy gold and silver on the dips.
Go digital with goldmoney, bullionvault, egold, etc.
Get some energy stocks,
If you can afford it, grab some farmland, next best thing is the rogers commodity fund.

Off to research the next great market..

Dealing with the Current Market and Likely Trends - Down!

My recommendation for Permanent portolio cranked out about 16% last year while the S&P500 flopped in at 6%. Both ECA and EFR are energy plays and will likely enter their uptrend soon. Meanwhile they should be paying a nice dividend, though I did not check. The dividends are the real story. Reinvested, big dividends will make you rich fast, even better than cap gains. The Permanent Portfolio is a safety fund. It rarely leads the pack and never finishes at the bottom. It survives all environments, but can lag the stock market for years on end.

Sell one investment when you have a better place for your funds depending on what you want - growth, safety, balance, etc. This is a trading environment because of the volatility. Buy and holder's will get creamed. Trading requires that I watch and move in and out of investments, avoiding if possible the 25% plus haircuts that are heading toward many portfolios. Unfortunately, with my work load, I can only work that much on my own and the family's portfolio, with each portfolio invested very differently because of varying goals.
Potentially good returns will come from the companies I recommended last time: GE, Schlumberge, Halliburton, J&J, etc. These are not going to be blow-out successes but will reward you steadily and SURVIVE the storm we are heading towards. You can buy and hold them. For more excitement and much higher returns, Uranium mining shares and precious metal shares, will have spectacular gains - 10X in 2 years is not uncommon - along with very challenging research and timing requirements to make the real money. Energy trusts are still good - Enerplus, etc.

What is more valuable than Gold and Silver?

Arable, farmable, land. Weather patterns - the coming ice age NOT the global warming scam - will freeze many farming regions north of 40 Lat and make others unsuitable because of precipitation. The hunt is on for good farmland as inexpensive as possible.

I purchased in Tennessee just as the drought was entering it's second year. Now two years on and we are running out of water in our streams and lakes, eventually the rives will run dry. Gone will be the farms and the produce from them.

It may be H.A.A.R.P. from the evil minds of the U.S. black opts government or it may be simply a weather shift, but in either case it spells a desperate need for more farmland and farmers.

Where to go? In my opinion, the area to focus on is Brazil. While other regions may also work, Brazil has the best chance of offering a reasonable chunk of land with all that a farmer needs - water, sun, soil, and inexpensive labor, and lax regulations. Not for abusing the soil, but handling business.

Look into it. That is the next best thing to Silver. Check out Ted Butler's interview with Investment Rarities.

Another Ode of Advice for the Future

In my opinion, you might consider the following:
1. Buy a years supply of dried, storable food for each member of your family. By 2011, the likely-hood is you will be eating it. - Approximately $5-8 k depending on your choices.
2. Agricultural and energy ETF's will probably do well. I have not analyzed all of them (I enter the market on a more targeted basis), but they will all probably move up, though at different rates.
3. You have approximately 1 year for Daniel, 4 years for Eitan, and 7 years for Jordan until the college bills hit. Unfortunately, the odds are high for another currency replacing the USD by the time Eitan enters college. Planning becomes imprecise because the eventual translation from old to new currency (the Amero) will be arbitrarily set to the disadvantage of the populace. Buy high dividend paying stocks from large cap infrastructure type stocks: GE, Johnson and Johnson, P&G, Schlumberge, Halliburton, ADM, etc. These international corporations will pay high dividends and be able to weather the depression that hits by 2010.
4. The big money will be made in gold and silver stocks, uranium stocks, agriculture futures and stocks, and energy plays (Nat Gas, oil futures, some alternative energies). Because you probably do not want to watch these carefully and you need the withdrawals to start within a year or so, I do not recommend this explosive market segment.
5. There will be a stock market beating again. The market will then probably go up some, but the currency will be devaluing rapidly so there may be no real gains, only nominal gains.
At some point you may want to be out of the market all together.
6. The world is transitioning away from financial assets to commodities - land, minerals, energy, water, metals, agricultural commodities. This will continue for many more years, so you can stay in these investments for a while, though there will be PULL BACKS.

Hope this helps!
-Mark

Looking for a Brief Rest for the Gold and Silver Climbers

Hopefully the expiration of the Crimex futures and options contracts at the end of this month will work it manipulated magic and give us a gift of perhaps at 5%+ drop. Taking gold down to 850 and silver down to $15.60 would make for a grand entrance point before they scoot.
Up the ascent to perhaps a $1200 ledge and $20 bivouac for the respective hardy mountaineers.
The stocks still seem to be questioning the leap of the metals. I am waiting before I enter long in a few selected producing jr's or those nearing production. Also considering which uranium plays to pick-up. They are generally being given away.
Last but not least - arable land will be the most treasured for of capital in the near future. I am betting huge on it - and I recommend you do as well.

Now I have to go pick up my tractor...