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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 1144987, member: 27832&quot;]I&#039;m not sure what you mean by &quot;bisecting the x and y axis&quot;. &quot;Bisect&quot; means &quot;divide into two equal parts&quot;. For a chart with increasing value on the Y axis and increasing time on the X axis, such a line would necessarily represent a <i>negative</i> rate of return!</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe you meant &quot;a line going from the lower left corner to the upper right corner&quot; -- but that doesn&#039;t make sense, either; it would prohibit the Y axis (value) from starting at zero, and moving the origin from zero is one of the most effective ways to <i>distort</i> a chart like this.</p><p><br /></p><p>The problem I have with the &quot;to the moon&quot; graph is that the curves (1) don&#039;t accurately track either tops or bottoms, and (2) aren&#039;t described -- are they supposed to be parabolic, exponential, hyperbolic, or something else? They look like they go asymptotic at the right, which means they&#039;re predicting that either the value of silver goes to infinity or the value of the dollar goes to zero. If one believes that, and believes it&#039;ll happen by the end of 2012, one should say so explicitly.</p><p><br /></p><p>When I look at that graph, I see a pair of curves drawn with a conclusion already in mind, and adjusted so that <i>most</i> of the data points fit between them. Over time, the data hew more and more closely to the bottom curve, and over the last two or three years they rarely even approach the middle curve. I would bet most of my life savings -- indeed, with my present allocation among stocks, bonds, cash, and PMs, I suppose I <i>am</i> betting most of my life savings -- that gold will break through the bottom curve any day now, even as it continues to climb.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, you could fit any number of different curves to this dataset. The whole point of markets, though, is that you <i>can&#039;t</i> predict them by curve-fitting (or anything else) -- because, if you could, so could the other participants, and the pricing would change to take that into account.</p><p><br /></p><p>By presenting a graph like this, PG is effectively saying &quot;I&#039;m smart enough to see where this is going, but the big market-movers aren&#039;t&quot;. I have to view any such claim with deep skepticism.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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