This installment includes my response to a dear friend who sent me an email debate between her brother Josh and their financial advisor Jim. All three of these people are super bright and understand the world situation to varying degrees, but better than most. Nonetheless, they wanted my opinion which differed dramatically from theirs. Please read on.
"First, cutting to the chase, my top picks for investments:
1. Energy - Nat. gas, small/mid tier Oil producers and services, Uranium plays.
2. PM's mining co's- Jr. producers that are growing reserves and will be bought out by the majors.
3. Equatorial Ag land.
4. Large Cap infrastructure companies - GE, Bechtel, Halliburton (politically and morally not appealing but a strong business nonetheless), etc.
5. Physical bullion and sovereign coins held allocated offshore if possible.
Now the discussion and philosophy behind my recommendations, along with some comments regarding Josh and Jim's line of reasoning.
1. Currency values are relative to each other these days along with gold. Rather than supply and demand driving the "value" of a fiat currency, (they are all valueless as Fiat) the difference in interest rates between countries levers one currency higher or lower than another depending of course on the underlying fundamentals of the issuing countries economy. High interest rates attract capital and raise the value of a currency eventually. Low interest rates have the opposite effect. Underlying all that is the rate of money and credit growth compared to the growth of good and services being produced, otherwise known as inflation. Sadly, the whole planet is inflating at near double digit rates - including the Euro, GBP, RNB, Yen, etc. The strongest currencies will be resource rich countries - Canada, Australia, etc.
All currencies are headed down relative to the ultimate currency - Gold. You can hop from one dropping currency to another, but eventually, gold will be the final stop. Since we have a gov't out of control, they could make gold illegal to own or trade or attempt to lock the price. Unlikely, but a consideration.
2. Foreign bonds can be a good currency play and I have enjoyed the returns for a while. One of the best is Loomis International Bond fund. I do not favor bonds and #3 explains why.
3. Even a ragingly successful investment in the stock or bond markets of the world has one critical weakness. Politicians control the worth of the currency the gains are denominated in. Zimbabwe's stock market has rocketed while the currency has depreciated even faster, leaving a net negative return. In my opinion, the considered course of action allows that the dollar may disappear within 3-5 years, leaving all investments open to any revaluation the politicos choose to assign. $1000 USD may become 1 Amero. You then have rescaled the investment into nonsense. So that leaves moving from the ether world of digital investments of paper stocks and bonds, into real valuables of gold, silver, oil, productive agricultural land, and commodities of all stripes.
Jim, the C.F.A., probably expects tomorrow to be pretty much like to day with some volatility. He probably did not encourage clients to lever into PM's in 2001 or 2002 or possibly even today - too risky according to his training.
He is not anticipating the Black Swan event that we will be swallowed by within a short period of time ranging from 6 - 24 months. Perhaps I misjudge him, though I think his recommendations bear my opinion out.
The bottom line is performance. Last year the S&P500 returned about 6%, the NASDAQ about 10%, the Dow around 9%. Inflation, as measured by M3 plus Shadowstats.com who calculates it based on Fed data that is now withheld from us, runs around 11%. Take away taxes also, and everyone invested with the herd lost about 5% of their money if not more.
Through some luck, long range planning, and a steady hand on the wheel, my portfolios returned from a low of 15% to a high of 37%. All while remaining risk averse.
For those willing to step from the make believe world of electronic digits and fiat currency, into the world of real metals, real land, and real values, the leap will be rewarded beyond your imagination.
While I could be wrong, that is where my money and efforts are invested."
Gold and silver are great, but not all there is in the investment universe.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Correction has Arrived on Schedule..
More than a correction for the stock market as a whole. Call it a destruction, demolition, or down market in the extreme. Much more than a correction. What with a dissolving currency underpinning the real return, if you did not realize it before, the real return is solidly negative and gaining speed for the SP500, Dow, and Nasdaq. 10% pre-inflation return leaves you wanting about 3% before the tax man comes and bites another 15% off of the total, or about 2 points.
Gold and silver slowed their ascent and have given back a little, but nothing much. Looks like there is significant support at the break out points of around $816 and $14.50 A few more days or no more than 2 weeks will tell. We should be back in the saddle for a ride well above the last resting points of $910 and $16.40
The attention of the world is going to gold and silver is waiting as the understudy.
The performance will be brilliant and even overshadow gold if silver gets into the high 20's, even $30. Seems like a huge stretch now, but then we were at $4.25 not very long ago begging for a far in the future $10/ounce. Now we are not satisfied with $20, we want $30!
At that point, anyone who has been within ear shot of me has made at least 7x their investment in about 5 years. Not bad.
The silver and gold stocks will behave first as stocks, then as options for the metals. So they have gone down with the market. They should rise with the metals, with gusto. I will be loading up with some of the juniors that I sold out of about 18 months ago, thank fully they have not run far without me. The next reflation and gold over $1000 should send the stocks heavenward!
Fortunes of a lifetime lie ahead...hop on now.
Gold and silver slowed their ascent and have given back a little, but nothing much. Looks like there is significant support at the break out points of around $816 and $14.50 A few more days or no more than 2 weeks will tell. We should be back in the saddle for a ride well above the last resting points of $910 and $16.40
The attention of the world is going to gold and silver is waiting as the understudy.
The performance will be brilliant and even overshadow gold if silver gets into the high 20's, even $30. Seems like a huge stretch now, but then we were at $4.25 not very long ago begging for a far in the future $10/ounce. Now we are not satisfied with $20, we want $30!
At that point, anyone who has been within ear shot of me has made at least 7x their investment in about 5 years. Not bad.
The silver and gold stocks will behave first as stocks, then as options for the metals. So they have gone down with the market. They should rise with the metals, with gusto. I will be loading up with some of the juniors that I sold out of about 18 months ago, thank fully they have not run far without me. The next reflation and gold over $1000 should send the stocks heavenward!
Fortunes of a lifetime lie ahead...hop on now.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Deeper Meaning of Gold and Silver
Yes, gold and silver are there to preserve your wealth.
For me, and I think for many, gold and silver preserve something else even more precious than wealth: my sanity.
Gold and silver are often called anchors of a monetary system. They quite literally anchor the world of man and commerce to G-d and the earth. Even if you do not believe in G-d, at least acknowledge that some mysterious force constructed gold and silver, and only by working with that force can we extract it from mother earth. This anchors the affairs of man to truth, nature, and equality.
Having gold and silver in your world will move you above the dishonest system now corrupting the entire planet. Like a liquid virus that flows into all corners of humanity, fiat currency spreads discontent, envy of the hyper-rich, despotism, bribery, death, destruction, and evil impulses without containment. The natural containment comes from the anchor of hard money, hard assets, where only gold and silver has successfully served for millenia. Paper has no role of lasting importance other than to lay waste to the good and reward the money changers over those producing the real wealth.
Eventually, the money changers - the banksters - hoist themselves up to their own hanging by over indulging in the kind of make believe commerce that fiat currencies engender. Derivatives come to mind. Mortgage fraud, CDO's, SIV's, all manner of extrapolation from the cotton candy foundation of fiat currency.
Having the ability to sell nothing but paper at near infinite mark-up was not enough. Now they had to pile on the exponentials where the 100 leverage of loaning out what you did not have was multiplied by piling loans on top of loans with the free ride given at the BOJ window, and soon the Fed window. The stacks of hundreds floating around Iraq and being "lost" in the hands of the governmental criminals has been a flashing red sign of that man on the street acknowledgement of hyperinflation:
When the currency is worth less than the toilet paper, you have arrived in Zimbabwe.
Gold and silver offers a respite from this horror world. It never gets over printed. It never goes completely out of fashion. It never gets replaced.
It truly is an achor.
Moor your ship to it and get ready to ride some rough financial seas.
For me, and I think for many, gold and silver preserve something else even more precious than wealth: my sanity.
Gold and silver are often called anchors of a monetary system. They quite literally anchor the world of man and commerce to G-d and the earth. Even if you do not believe in G-d, at least acknowledge that some mysterious force constructed gold and silver, and only by working with that force can we extract it from mother earth. This anchors the affairs of man to truth, nature, and equality.
Having gold and silver in your world will move you above the dishonest system now corrupting the entire planet. Like a liquid virus that flows into all corners of humanity, fiat currency spreads discontent, envy of the hyper-rich, despotism, bribery, death, destruction, and evil impulses without containment. The natural containment comes from the anchor of hard money, hard assets, where only gold and silver has successfully served for millenia. Paper has no role of lasting importance other than to lay waste to the good and reward the money changers over those producing the real wealth.
Eventually, the money changers - the banksters - hoist themselves up to their own hanging by over indulging in the kind of make believe commerce that fiat currencies engender. Derivatives come to mind. Mortgage fraud, CDO's, SIV's, all manner of extrapolation from the cotton candy foundation of fiat currency.
Having the ability to sell nothing but paper at near infinite mark-up was not enough. Now they had to pile on the exponentials where the 100 leverage of loaning out what you did not have was multiplied by piling loans on top of loans with the free ride given at the BOJ window, and soon the Fed window. The stacks of hundreds floating around Iraq and being "lost" in the hands of the governmental criminals has been a flashing red sign of that man on the street acknowledgement of hyperinflation:
When the currency is worth less than the toilet paper, you have arrived in Zimbabwe.
Gold and silver offers a respite from this horror world. It never gets over printed. It never goes completely out of fashion. It never gets replaced.
It truly is an achor.
Moor your ship to it and get ready to ride some rough financial seas.
Friday, January 11, 2008
How High can Gold and Silver Go?
Another way to ask this question is, How little can you trust a politician?
Or, How much is a wooden nickel worth to you?
The answer is, you cannot trust a politician - other than Ron Paul - at all, nor can you purchase anything for a wooden nickel.
There is your answer to how high gold and silver can go - as high up as trust can fall. Trust can and will fall to zero in the worlds currencies, so gold and silver will fly to undreamed of heights.
They will be worth something to when they fly. Even and the measuring stick - all fiat currencies begin deteriorating fast enough to enter the trash bin of currencies the pace of gold and silver accelerating will leave plenty of worth in the metals.
As Dr. Marc Faber is fond of saying, he can see a point when no amount of $'s will be sufficient to buy gold and probably silver.
While we will have all made fortunes, the problem will be feeding ourselves and fueling our lives.
The lose of the currency will implode commerce. First and foremost, currency is a means of transacting business. Barter is much slower and more cumbersome.
Get ready for some interesting times.
Or, How much is a wooden nickel worth to you?
The answer is, you cannot trust a politician - other than Ron Paul - at all, nor can you purchase anything for a wooden nickel.
There is your answer to how high gold and silver can go - as high up as trust can fall. Trust can and will fall to zero in the worlds currencies, so gold and silver will fly to undreamed of heights.
They will be worth something to when they fly. Even and the measuring stick - all fiat currencies begin deteriorating fast enough to enter the trash bin of currencies the pace of gold and silver accelerating will leave plenty of worth in the metals.
As Dr. Marc Faber is fond of saying, he can see a point when no amount of $'s will be sufficient to buy gold and probably silver.
While we will have all made fortunes, the problem will be feeding ourselves and fueling our lives.
The lose of the currency will implode commerce. First and foremost, currency is a means of transacting business. Barter is much slower and more cumbersome.
Get ready for some interesting times.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Silver and Gold Stocks still Suffering
Following this silver and gold bull market for the past 7 years, I have enjoyed watching the stocks sail even more than the periodic jumps of the metal.
My favorite scenes -
Excellon Resources soaring from .13 to my sell point at $1.30 in something like 18 months! I picked this stock after my own research and it was one of my better picks.
Of course Aurelian blew that one away...thank you Jim Puplava of Financial Sense.
What a gem that site is...along with Jim and John Loeffler. They are the band leaders of the commodity movement.
Now though, we barely get any life out of the precious metals stocks -they are hurting and have been for a long time.
Take today for example. Silver over $16.15 and yet the stocks are languishing. I think the stocks are caught in the slam of naked short selling along with people pulling there horns in generally because of the stock market drops setup around the world.
First and foremost, the mining stocks are stocks. Not forward options on metal - not even close, unless they are producing companies in safe countries that have not sold forward their production, and are selling at a reasonable discount. Many must be because they are not selling at a premium - yet.
Oil prices are seen as a proxy for the input cost of mining. Tires, machinery, energy, labor, all require oil. So if oil rises along with the price of the metals, then you have a sliding input/profits ratio. Both the numerator and denominator are increasing so the profit percentage does not change as much. This already happened as gold soared from $265 up to $800 and the profit picture did not scale because the input costs were rising at least as quickly.
The future holds more of the same. My back of the envelope calculations indicate that gold will have to out scale the cost of oil by 20% before the profit variables begin to turn favorably for the miners. Until then, the sales numbers will grow, but the profit percentages will not.
Should oil and gold hit $100 and $1000 together - the math will get clean.
My favorite scenes -
Excellon Resources soaring from .13 to my sell point at $1.30 in something like 18 months! I picked this stock after my own research and it was one of my better picks.
Of course Aurelian blew that one away...thank you Jim Puplava of Financial Sense.
What a gem that site is...along with Jim and John Loeffler. They are the band leaders of the commodity movement.
Now though, we barely get any life out of the precious metals stocks -they are hurting and have been for a long time.
Take today for example. Silver over $16.15 and yet the stocks are languishing. I think the stocks are caught in the slam of naked short selling along with people pulling there horns in generally because of the stock market drops setup around the world.
First and foremost, the mining stocks are stocks. Not forward options on metal - not even close, unless they are producing companies in safe countries that have not sold forward their production, and are selling at a reasonable discount. Many must be because they are not selling at a premium - yet.
Oil prices are seen as a proxy for the input cost of mining. Tires, machinery, energy, labor, all require oil. So if oil rises along with the price of the metals, then you have a sliding input/profits ratio. Both the numerator and denominator are increasing so the profit percentage does not change as much. This already happened as gold soared from $265 up to $800 and the profit picture did not scale because the input costs were rising at least as quickly.
The future holds more of the same. My back of the envelope calculations indicate that gold will have to out scale the cost of oil by 20% before the profit variables begin to turn favorably for the miners. Until then, the sales numbers will grow, but the profit percentages will not.
Should oil and gold hit $100 and $1000 together - the math will get clean.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Back from being sick, about Like Gold and Silver are about to Be..
The COT structure shows extremes in the dealer and big speculators being long. Could be the specs are right and the dealers are wrong this time, they have taken a beating from the rise over the past couple of weeks. Love how Goldman tells everyone to go short just at the train leaves the station and the puts get crushed. Poetry in reverse.
My own take on this wild ride:
Gold and silver are responding the banking crisis liquidity pump and the expectation of a 50 basis point cut around the corner with the Fed. Maybe they will, maybe they wont. But they better...or else the wheels come off faster than they already are.
People are rushing to bonds just like they rush to the candidates the media pushes on them instead of Ron Paul - the one bring real change and freedom. Sheeple to the end, sadly. That includes the end of their retirements, the end of their investments, the end of their freedoms, the end of the right to travel, the end of privacy, the end of the defined U.S. as we know it. They would rather have the blather from the politicians than the truth from Ron Paul.
I did not know that he had a silver and gold investment business many years ago. That is consistency. Even though Dr. Ron will probably not be our next president, gold and silver will be our profitable financial lifeboats.
Hold on tight - 2008 will be a wild ride!
My own take on this wild ride:
Gold and silver are responding the banking crisis liquidity pump and the expectation of a 50 basis point cut around the corner with the Fed. Maybe they will, maybe they wont. But they better...or else the wheels come off faster than they already are.
People are rushing to bonds just like they rush to the candidates the media pushes on them instead of Ron Paul - the one bring real change and freedom. Sheeple to the end, sadly. That includes the end of their retirements, the end of their investments, the end of their freedoms, the end of the right to travel, the end of privacy, the end of the defined U.S. as we know it. They would rather have the blather from the politicians than the truth from Ron Paul.
I did not know that he had a silver and gold investment business many years ago. That is consistency. Even though Dr. Ron will probably not be our next president, gold and silver will be our profitable financial lifeboats.
Hold on tight - 2008 will be a wild ride!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Silver and Gold Getting Legs - Enough to Support the World?
Not nearly enough. Perfectly so, as the case is. If there were enough gold and silver to easily support the torrent of fiat schmegma then the gold and silver would lose their own significance. Fact is, both the precious brethren are precariously short in supply making each bit more precious still.
Silver may go to parity and beyond. That being matching the gold price. Interesting, as soon as silver hits $20 it becomes the official value of a U.S. minted gold coin. Close, so close. Really more the spirit would be hitting $35 per ounce, USBullSlooies to silver troy ounce because that would be the first demarcation where Dict. FDR slew the honor of the U.S. founders and devalued the dollar to $35/gold ounce. We may hit that mark in 2009. Only the seer upstairs knows the reaction we will see after Beijing.
Since China is more than likely the huge silver short - per T.B. writings - they may gather their toys or the COMEX may seek to spank the hand that feeds and get them out of the market. Force Majeure will become an unwelcome guest at the carcass that will be the silver futures market. Cash only please.
Yes, 2007 was a Precious year. The years ahead will be even more so...
Stay tuned for my 2008 - 2012 predictions!
Silver may go to parity and beyond. That being matching the gold price. Interesting, as soon as silver hits $20 it becomes the official value of a U.S. minted gold coin. Close, so close. Really more the spirit would be hitting $35 per ounce, USBullSlooies to silver troy ounce because that would be the first demarcation where Dict. FDR slew the honor of the U.S. founders and devalued the dollar to $35/gold ounce. We may hit that mark in 2009. Only the seer upstairs knows the reaction we will see after Beijing.
Since China is more than likely the huge silver short - per T.B. writings - they may gather their toys or the COMEX may seek to spank the hand that feeds and get them out of the market. Force Majeure will become an unwelcome guest at the carcass that will be the silver futures market. Cash only please.
Yes, 2007 was a Precious year. The years ahead will be even more so...
Stay tuned for my 2008 - 2012 predictions!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)