Crisis Investing 101: How to Invest in Currencies the Easy Way

In the past few weeks, I've told you about the five assets that could save your portfolio. I've shown my favorite gold and oil plays, how to protect a portfolio with commodities, how real estate provides safety in good and bad times, and how owning gold coins and bullions requires some level of expertise.

Today, I'm going to tell you about currency exchange, an investment that has become so popular, you could trade with only $1 in your account.

Like gold coins and bullion, currency trading is a traditional form of investment, because it can be physically held. For example, investors who held greenbacks instead of the euro during the euro-zone-banking crisis were substantially rewarded. Continue reading "Crisis Investing 101: How to Invest in Currencies the Easy Way"

Perspective on Gold and the Stock Market

It has been a relentlessly bullish decade (plus) for gold vs. the broad US stock market as the previous stock bull market flamed out and the former Fed chief chose inflation as the preferred means of managing the US economy.  We are in the age of Inflation onDemand ™, with stock market performance the result of manipulation of interest rates and currency.

S&P 500 – Gold ratio monthly chart Continue reading "Perspective on Gold and the Stock Market"

Value Market in Gold Will Work for Patient Investors: Jocelyn August

The Gold Report: Jocelyn, I'm looking at a portfolio of junior precious metals mining stocks, and all I can see is red ink. With the exception of MAG Silver Corp. (MAG:TSX; MVG:NYSE), all in that group are underwater for the past 52 weeks. We are currently in a down-trending precious metals market, and I'm interested to know if catalysts matter anymore.

Jocelyn August: Catalysts absolutely do matter right now. We may see a catalyst occur in a company followed by a 2% uptick in its stock, on the same day the sector as a whole may be down 25%. We may see that even in this price environment. If you were aware of that catalyst and you bet on it, you would actually have fared better than the sector on that day. By comparison it actually did help the stock price.

"Catalysts absolutely do matter right now."

Conversely, we also see a fair amount of catalysts that might have a negative consequence to the stock price, particularly when it comes to permit approval decisions that may go the wrong way for the company. You could get pretty badly burned. For example, back in early October 2012, Pacific Booker Minerals Inc. (BKM:TSX.V; PBM:NYSE.A) announced that the environmental assessment permit for its Morrison project in central British Columbia was denied. The stock dropped 66% in one day and then dropped even further in the week. A month after that event, Pacific Booker was down 75% from the day before the announcement. So, catalysts do matter.

TGR: In this kind of depressed gold and silver market, it appears that the effect of negative news is magnified. Is that in fact the case? Continue reading "Value Market in Gold Will Work for Patient Investors: Jocelyn August"

Americans Yawn At Budget Cut Hype

President Barack Obama is pulling out all the stops to warn just what could happen if automatic budget cuts kick in. Americans are reacting with a collective yawn.

They know the drill: Obama raises the alarm, Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of holding a deal hostage, there's a lot of yelling on cable news, and then finally, when everyone has made their points, a deal is struck and the day is saved.

Maybe not this time. Two days before $85 billion in cuts are set to hit federal programs with all the precision of a wrecking ball, there are no signs that a deal is imminent. Even the White House conceded Wednesday that efforts to avoid the cuts were unlikely to succeed before they kick in on Friday.

Still, for all the grim predictions, Americans seem to be flipping the channel to something a little less, well, boring. They wonder, haven't we been here before? Continue reading "Americans Yawn At Budget Cut Hype"

Poll: What are your thoughts on the housing market?

Yesterday new home sales jumped 15.9%. That was a huge unexpected gap up in sales. What are your thoughts on the current status of the housing market?

Should the U.S. government do more to help boost the housing market?

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