Now, now V... I'd be more than happy to hold onto your gold for you.. just let me know when I can take if off your hands :icon_mrgreen:
If it glitters.... And then you can use those, along with my friend's Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC certificates, for wallpaper, when you remodel next time. (Perhaps by then he'll have stopped waiting for them to make a comeback: he's a serious "buy and hold" man, it seems.) __________________ You suppose there's any Indian men out there catching it, right now, for not having bought their wives more gold? __________________
Intervention Each day of this recent crisis gold has opened higher. Investors clearly feel a need to shoreup their wealth, just a little, with gold. The concept of owning gold is simple enough, and little more need be said about it, here. In some cultures, it's a natural, such as in China or India: everybody with any money at all has got some. But, we've (historically) enjoyed a combination of more political and economic stability, and it's been rather far from most people's minds, until recently. ____________________ The leaders of the two largest economies in Europe met Friday evening, and produced a strong statement of support for the Euro. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said today that an "intervention unit" designed to preserve financial stability in the 16 eurozone countries would be in place by Monday, when the markets reopen, with a fund equal to about $100,000,000,000.00 USD. Although I thought most of the problems in the Eurozone had to do with sovereign debt, their joint statement seemed to reflect more concern that, with the euro so weak now, speculators would take advantage, and attack the euro in an attempt to drive it down further and, through processes I don't fully understand, make a killing for themselves while inflicting suffering on everyone else. (George Soros became wealthy doing this against the GBP, and has spent the rest of his life trying to atone for it by promoting development projects around the world. He can't undo the damage he did to the British economy, at the time, though.) Whether this statement, coupled with the Greek bailout plan, will be sufficient to calm markets, remains to be seen. At least they've started seriously to try, and that may be enough, so long as another European country doesn't collapse, financially, as Greece did, anytime soon. _____________________ Unless there's a new crisis over the weekend, look forward to a rebound in equity markets- and, a drop in the value of the dollar, and gold- come Monday morning, in Asia. If we don't see it, I'd be a little concerned.... _____________________
Gold is more an insurance than an investment. The only way to hold gold is physical. I sold most of my gold stocks yesterday, even if they should have been hold a little more. If there is a crash in the market , gold will follow. The meltdown of the Euro is just the beginning in my opinion. So many other nations (Portugal, Italy, Spain) have the same problems than Greece. There is a flow going towards the Dollar as it becomes the only "safe" place to go. However the market as a whole is bound for a sharp next leg down before year end. The trend is down and the bull from January is showing signs of topping. It is difficult for the average investor to decide where to put the money.....I am quite all in cash or equivalent...No assurance than real estate has touched the bottom in the US....Where to invest, that is the question....
"All cash" Thanks for joining the discussion, Claire. Deciding where to invest may be the biggest challenge individual investors face. People are sometimes not comfortable with the idea of being "all cash", but there are times when that's the only thing that makes sense for a prudent investor. (Many large funds are essentially that, at the moment, not seeing a good direction in which to jump.) The concept of avoiding loss of capital has always made sense to me: there will normally be opportunities to venture into the markets, when conditions are such as to make it a little safer to do so. __________________ "going to "all cash"": can refer to a person pulling out of the markets when they feel times are not stable enough to justify the risk of buying and holding stocks: it doesn't imply they may not have other assets
That should do it.... It wasn't just Merkel and Sarkozy who were at work since Friday to solve the immediate crisis, as you can see, from the above. Amazingly, with one trillion U.S. equivalent committed to the package, some are speculating this may not be enough; but, I suspect by showing the leadership is prepared to go all out to control the situation, markets will be well reassured by this latest move. It took the events of last week to convince everyone that this was serious.... There is fragility in many economies, most especially in the U.S. economy, at this time in history: doing anything less than everything possible to head off a slide into a second Great Depression, with all the suffering that would cause, would be unforgivable. ____________________
Gold In spite of measures taken to shore up the euro, and the guarantee of payment of sovereign debt across the EU, investors continue to show a large degree of anxiety, reflected in a demand for gold which I've not seen for some time. Each day for a number of days, the spot price of gold has opened higher, irrespective of what markets were doing, generally, demonstrating an unslaked appetite for gold. Holding some gold, to be used as a substitute for money in an upside down world, could ultimately prove to be the prudent thing to do.
Practically speaking.... Demand for gold remains high, today's opening higher than yesterday's, and gold hitting a record high, reflecting investor concern that the wheels may come off, in spite of everything. _____________________ There must be some practical measures people can take to shore up their lives, just a little, in these times. I'll mention three, of varying worth, and invite the readers to suggest others that have occurred to them. Buy some physical gold, for use as money, if needed: those who advocate this never recommend more than 20% of your worth to be in gold. (If there ever was a "buy and hold" item, this would be it, to be passed down to your children, or others, when you no longer have need of it.) Own a home you can pay for outright, and live in, if times require it. A consideration would be that it also have low monthly "operating" costs. Stock up. Have two months of foodstuffs on hand that you could live on if there were serious disruptions to distribution. This can be parlayed into savings on your regular grocery bills, in the meantime, by buying in bulk (cartons) packaged foods you like to use anyway. Can anyone think of others? (What these three I've mentioned all have in common is they could be adopted, to varying degrees, without disrupting life as we now know it.)
