Fair point. I find people who actually invest their own money in a market they have looked at for a long time usually have clearer "eyesight". I trust a market where people's retirement are in play more than I do any economist's predictions, since the economist has nothing to lose really, while real cash in play makes the game more real. This is the basis of why the University of Iowa's political predictions are usually very good, they aren't "polls" but a financial market where returns are made from correct predictions. Even though the U is very liberal, when money is involved a conservative can easily be predicted to win if it will benefit the predictor.
The funny part is that I almost totally disregard participation and experience. I look more at originality, reasoning, and depth of research regardless of experience.
Well at least those who thought the USD$ was headed for sub- 70.0 should be happy for the strengthening the last few days. Maybe time to rotate the survival food, eat the old stuff and buy new. It does appear that this might be a little more than a minor correction. You may remember a post in another thread where I mentioned that CME margins on silver are raised on volatility, irregardless of the direction. Comex is raising the margin again today and again on Monday according to CNBC. So more margin calls for those hanging on to their holdings. The USD strength is a small surprise, as I thought it would be slower. Jim
It does at that. I don't know if this will end the bull market [my guess is still no] but a substantial amount of damage has been done that might take a fairly long time to heal. I wouldn't expect a quick return to the old highs. Can the regulators really terminate a bull market using margin limits? Markets ususally overwhelm the regulatiors over the long run. Time will tell.
Good to hear the dollar is strengthening. I wish it would have before last Spring's ancient auctions though. Lol, I loved the line about rotating your survival rations.....
Or were the regulators simply trying to tame a bull before it ran too far causing more damage in the future? There are always two sides. Looking back, I think most of us wished the regulators would have tightened real estate lending standards quicker, then the pain of the correction would have been much easier to deal with, and over quicker.
...and I thought it would have come about due to a hike in interest rates. The GOOD NEWS!! is that now that silver is below $40/Oz, both the 2010 and 2011 Silver Proof and Quarters sets have been taken off the US Mint's "Endangered Species" list. ...meaning, you can buy them again! (WooHoo!) :hail:
They may have needed to protect some of the big short sellers. Another bankruptcy of a major financial institution wouldn't be pretty - or cheap.
Copper under $4.00 looks more attractive at this point for 6mo.-yr out. Eventually building and infrastructure needs will emerge for it. Of course one might wait until the USD finds a level. Still tempting IMO. Jim
I wish you wouldn't have said that Cloud, it's two of the main reasons I respect your opinion. Perhaps you meant to say "in addition to"?
You should never respect anything I say without checking it out for yourself. Here is another thing to consider: I made the decision to concentrate my investment portfolio into PM and energy related investments in 2004. I used to tell people I expected the old highs in silver and gold to be reached at a time when I was buying ASEs for $5-7 and gold for $425. So you could say I have a fair amount of experience and participation in this bull market. But it also means that my thinking might be outdated. Right now, I'm looking around and reading a lot of different things because I realize that I'm going to have to find some new ideas pretty soon. Yesterday's and today's ideas and investment concepts look pretty smart this far into a bull market, but that's also what makes them extremely dangerous. It is the new idea and discovery of the next big thing [that everyone thinks is strange] that will earn high investment returns over time. I've been selling some PM and energy investments on rallys since last November. I don't expect to bail out completely until gold and silver go parabolic [which I define as $100 increases for gold in a day or two and $10 in silver], but it's something that everyone here should be thinking about -- what to do next. The people who are wildly bullish for the long run scare me.
Watching CBNBC: Carlos Slim sold 96 million ozs silver and of course Soros unloads most of his PM. Silver margin increased five times. What's Bernanke going to do? The dollar getting a little to strong for him?
Bernarke and Obama are probably dancing tonight. Oil down over $10 and looking for more. USD strengthening or euro and other weakening if you prefer to think it that way. Commodities down, so threat of inflation less, What a turn around IMO. I understand that Slim just sold options and future to hedge the price as far out as 2 years. I think he averaged over $40 an ounce hedged price for his silver mines. Smart Billionaire. Jim
yep, and according to CNBC he owns some major silver mines as well. These really are unpredictable economic times with, I believe, more major unpredictability to come.
Both Soros & Slim unwound large positions in a thinly traded market. After these guys and the hedge funds have sold, it's likely the market will have washed out most of the sellers. We could then have a period of consolidation with trading in a narrow range. Personally, I will be interested to see what happens in June when the Fed stops buying Treasuries. The very real problems of the national debt and the debasement of the dollar by printing large quantities did not go away simply due to a sell-off in PM's. For myself, this will be interesting to watch...
Silver did end up breaking $35 on the downside. It was a day earlier than I expected but that's fine with me. I think that silver will ultimately bottom out at $26 sometime this Summer (Late June/Early July) before it recovers. Silver is NOT going to hit $50 this year but I will also state that I think that silver will finish somewhere between $37 and $41 on December 31, 2011.
If this is the actual case, then I have a bit of a problem with it. The shorts had plenty of time to get thier positions squared away. If I recall, silver was just south of $20/oz when the whistle blower showed the CFTC thier method. That tells me that either thier greed was unfathomable to my mind, they were so arrogant that they didn't care and continued to thumb their noses at the system, or quite frankly, as obtuse as you can get. I'm not sure which of them I believe and it might be a combination of them, but in the end it is a whole bunch of mularkey.
