Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Hi Nick,
I'm a big fan of John Williams. He has a website called shadowstats where he calculates the basic gov't stats using the formulae used during previous administrations. Take them back to the days of Reagan and unemployment is over 20%, inf…
Hi Mark,
It smells like we'll end up on the lows and a bunch. Hope I'm wrong, but this has looked major ugly from early on.
But then, not only are we going into a global recession, we've actually been in one since the dot.com meltdown and now t…
Hi Derf,
Hardly DS, but Yes, they HAVE to rebalance because their asset allocation is a fixed amount of gold at 20% and silver at 5%. Should their prices rises relative to other asset classes involved, they MUST rebalance.
Again, check the link …
Hi folks,
I disagree with Scott in the case that Permanent Portfolio is not a core fund. I feel it's the very best core fund available and that it's by design. If you read about Harry Browne, who developed the original concept you will see why.
…
Hi Bee,
Meant to get back to you on this earlier, but us old guys . . .
I concur with much of his reasoning and conclusing. The exception is his prediction on gold. I disagree. I've felt all along we'd be stagnate for years and 2013 seems like…
Hi Mo,
No apologies needed, nor deserved. At times I can be rather opaque.
I was hearing today that much of the current bank problem in Europe is that they are so loaned out all the time that they need a lot of short term bridge financing and tha…
Hi Mo,
Sorry, but you misunderstood me. I was agreeing with you that there are many examples of regulations that are BS. I would never censor you or anyone around here. I might disagree with you but that's different. Your examples are classic …
Howdy,
Great article and true. Without some demand side stimulus, folks are not spending and if they are not spending, then businesses are not hiring more workers to produce more stuff.
rono
Howdy Greg and Mark,
Granted that the industrial age is over and this is the information age. Dr. Ballard stated that the auto industry peaked in 1973 and has been in decline since. This type of mfg job is gone forever.
However, you can take a…
Howdy,
Reply to Mo about reducing regulations. Your examples are classic and nasty and should be eliminated. That said, 99% of what I'm hearing the repubicans ask for is elimation of the clean air act, the clean water act, selling off or making a…
Howdy,
The estimates that I've seen range from $65T to $115T. Pick your poison. When I started posting about UL, it was more than a few years back and while perhaps you have seen something that would have shrunk or even contained them, I have no…
Hi Mo,
Maureen from Salil's never posted after 9/11 and considering her depth of knowledge, it was generally felt that we lost her in one of the towers.
rono
Howdy,
A couple of things. Assuming the numbers are correct, the 75% was redeemed back in the late 60's and early 70's, before we went off the gold standard permanently. Us deciding to eliminate the silver from our coinage sparked foreign holde…
Hi Ron,
What folks need to be aware of is the actual percentage of pm's in your portfolio as compared to your target percentage. If your target is 10% and you've doubled, you could be pushing 20%. At this point, you need to rebalance.
Or, once y…
Hi John,
Copper, like silver and the Noble Sisters, is tied to the economy and with most of the world looking at an economic slowdown, it's being held down. The gold trade (currently) is Safe Haven stuff while copper is economic recovery.
Now, …
Howdy,
I'm not familiar with these particular funds, but I have never found a loaded fund that didn't have an equivalent if not better NoLoad alternative. Randy has listed some good int'l funds. Note that a Global fund will include U.S. companies…
Hi Fund Kid,
Ah, but Joe took the proceeds from his market liquidation and bought gold. He later used that gold during the depression to purchase assets cheaply.
Hi Mindy,
Scott listed many reasons but what is happening is folks are taking pos…
geez, guys, Wall Street being corrupt should be a given if one has ever read any history. What is so sad today is how utterly corrupted is Washington BY Wall Street.
But then, we went to war in WWI because the Allies were losing and they owed JP…
I think Mike Dell said about their latest BOT decisions - if they spin off their PC business, will they rename themselves Compaq?
They were hammered on the biz channels as in reality being run direction by the Board who hires the CEO to be a figure…
Howdy folks,
circa33 - check out NCV for dividend stream.
When to buy? er, ever hear of trying to catch a falling knive? This could be a bloody axe right now, so I'd be very much against setting some numeric buy level for the DOW 'going down'.…
Howdy,
I'm sort of in a tough spot. As an economist, I'm very conservative and philosophically in the Austrian sound money/Ron Paul camp. I'm also a tree-huggin', dirt-munchin' druid of a liberal with civil libertarian leanings. teehehe ;-)
I c…
Hi Mike,
I hope that you're correct and that PF is wrong and chances are this will prove to be the case. However, a prudent investor must adopt a risk management strategy in order to guard against adverse futures.
Rioting? or Financial Meltdow…
Hi again,
When executing an estate, you must take the high road in all instances. When assigning a value to some asset, you use the price that you would receive if you had to sell it. Any other pricing must be explained in the documentation for t…
Hi Mona,
For estate evaluation purposes, you want to use the dealers Buy Price not Sale Price. The difference is similar to the spread between retail and wholesale.
Good luck,
rono
Hi Mona,
Sorry about your loss.
Good stuff by Mark.
I'd take them into one of the local dealers and have them checked over. They are probably your basic plain vanilla business strike bullion coins from some bullion dealer of the time. Dealer …
Hi Flack,
Hope you and yours are doing well. Hey, you've got to CYA. Not sure that means going survivalist, but there are many, many preparations that once taken will never hurt you.
Risk management is a very interesting concept. What are the p…
Howdy folks,
Thanks for calming me down although I'm still fundamentally pissed at our politicians.
As for this downgrade, feh, Captain Price will deal with it in his own way although in this case, the collateral damage will happen to real people …
Howdy,
It's been a trend but both of these situations greatly highlighted the problem.
Folks, it's still the Unfunded Liabilities and the nature of the politikal beast. You make lots of promises with no possibility of paying for them and as long …
Howdy,
Can't say I disagree with anyone posting. Your trigger point has to be your ability to sleep . . . or not. Not a big issue as this would be an incremental rebalancing. You would want to lighten up discretely and prudently and hopefully w…
Howdy folks,
Geez, it's your basic CYA stuff. I'm not doing anything really crazy. Diversify your portfolio and your wealth. Get out of debt. Have a diversified emergency fund that could cover a year or so. Seek additional streams of income. …
Howdy,
MEAFX is their Asian Currency fund. They've got a Absolute Return Currency fund MABFX but if you note on the link, they're ALL currency plays. Currency has always been Axel's forte'.
http://www.merkfunds.com/fund/
We own MEAFX but not …
Howdy,
I'd compare it to merk's stuff - MEAFX or MABFX. MERKX is very close to PRPFX so it's not what you're looking for. Also, consider just buying currency ETF's. FXC or FXA for canada or australia. I think they've got them for many countries…
Hi all,
Good discussion.
The nut is to be damn careful and prudent. Money can't get any cheaper, so the only direction for the FED and interest rates is Up. When this even occurs, it will result in a market setback (i.e. let's say 10%). That's…
Hi DAK,
Good stuff as usual.
If this sort of market activity bothers people, there is a pretty easy way to avoid it - take possession. Get yourself a safe deposit box and own physical bullion.
It's not unlike the action on a bond fund when ra…
Hi DAK,
I have never bought from a mine and would hesitate to do so. Not because of the price, per se, but because of the pedigree . . . or lack thereof. Fungibility is crucial when buying physical bullion. The American Eagles can be traded at m…
Hi freak,
I've got some that were transferred but Scottrade quieried me about each this past year. Hell, the cretins even quieried me about stuff I'd bought on their watch.
I just fill in the blanks BUT once you've got them all recorded, you don'…
