<---- not this one.

Gold's value is purely emotional. It has little *real* value.

11/5/2009 1:39:17 PM

Attention, shoppers! Gold bars in Aisle Three!

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/28/2109863.aspx

11/5/2009 1:40:47 PM

I'm not so sure how that's going to work out for them. Harrods has luxury shit that they sell to those who can afford it. Gold is gold. Those who can afford luxury shit can afford not to store it at home and can also buy it in larger quantities. Maybe it'll be a hit with tourists that buy it for the novelty and ease rather than going through a dealer.

11/6/2009 1:55:34 PM

anecdotes:

-- was watching CNBC Europe a while back, and some analyst from Barclays said that since gold has been north of $400/oz (thats just when he began his analysis), 12-15% of the the price of gold has been due to the cultural affinity for gold in Asia (primnarily in India)

-- when gold was at $700, my mom coerced me into buying thousands of dollars worth of gold to put in a vault, citing the need for giving gold jewelry as gifts to close relatives during impending weddings in the immediate family. in acquiring said gold my uncle called a bunch of different brokers, and at the end of the day ordered it from a broker in Canada, who in turn bought it from the Canadian mint -- even then, the physical delivery took 3 or 4 months due to demand.

as India's middle class rises, and if its currency rises due to its central bank's near extreme fiduciary austerity, this particular force will be positive for gold's incremental value will increase, checked only by any potential loss of cultural affinity for the metal. by itself, this force can't sustain the elevated value of the metal -- the currencies of the developed world have more to do with it, but this force may help put a floor on how far the metal can fall.




[Edited on November 6, 2009 at 2:26 PM. Reason : i've been buying IAU since 2005/2006. you can probably check my post history for evidence]

11/6/2009 2:15:10 PM

Anyone have any feedback on the broker thinkorswim? I'm switching to them.

11/6/2009 4:35:42 PM

Quote :

"Gold's value is purely emotional. It has little *real* value."

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

The younger American, named Curtin (B-movie actor Tim Holt), asks the mangy American drifter Dobbs how many centavos are left between them and wonders whether they can afford a bed in a cockroach-infested flophouse. Dobbs tells Curtin about some cheap sleeping quarters for the night: "I know a joint that's full of rats, scorpions, and cockroaches. The cots are only fifty centavos a night." In Dormitorio "El Oso Negro," the two check in and move down the narrow aisle between rows of cots on which other disinherited Americans are sitting or lying.

They pass by and overhear a scruffy, experienced, eccentric, toothless old gold prospector named Howard (Walter Huston, the director's father) who has gathered an enthralled audience while describing the adventurous hunt for gold:

Howard: Gold in Mexico? Why sure there is. Not ten days from here by rail and pack train, there's a mountain waiting for the right guy to come along, discover a treasure, and then tickle her until she lets him have it. The question is, are you the right guy?...Aw, real bonanzas are few and far between that take a lot of finding. Say, answer me this one, will ya? Why's gold worth some twenty bucks an ounce?

Another man: I don't know. 'Cause it's scarce.

Howard: A thousand men, say, go searching for gold. After six months, one of 'em is lucky - one out of the thousand. His find represents not only his own labor but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's uh, six thousand months or five hundred years scrabbling over mountains, going hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it.

Man: Never thought of it just like that...

Howard: Well, there's no other explanation, mister. Gold itself ain't good for nothin' except makin' jewelry with and gold teeth.

[Edited on November 6, 2009 at 4:58 PM. Reason : gold teef]

11/6/2009 4:57:47 PM

Intel Will Pay $1.25 Billion to Settle Disputes With Rival

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/technology/companies/13chip.html?_r=3&hp

11/12/2009 12:57:54 PM

HP announced buyout of COMS today. COMS jumped over 30% from close yesterday to a high of $7.52 during the day. I bought last year at $3.80 and cashed out today

11/12/2009 8:09:09 PM

^ props

11/13/2009 12:45:32 AM

sold some EDC and TNA (maybe too soon, but got to take profits along the way)

bought some GDXJ

11/16/2009 3:45:36 PM

http://tinyurl.com/yzxrgmo

11/16/2009 6:55:40 PM

bought back that EDC

11/19/2009 1:22:40 PM

pwnt

ok, im doubling down

11/20/2009 12:21:36 PM

selling IAU and getting into DGP on dips

12/2/2009 11:01:55 AM

why not use GLD options instead?

12/2/2009 12:04:56 PM

what would you suggest? long dated calls?

12/2/2009 3:57:27 PM

57% YTD through November holla. Riding the wave.

12/2/2009 7:57:43 PM

Picked up a little bit of COH today.

12/3/2009 4:06:39 PM

Man lot of carnage out there today to followup on yesterdays closing swoon

12/4/2009 12:00:37 PM

yeah this has been a nutso day

12/4/2009 12:51:03 PM

Picked up a bit of AA just before close. Hoping to sell some calls on it on our next up day.

12/7/2009 3:59:09 PM

Quote :

"Anyone have any feedback on the broker thinkorswim? I'm switching to them."

Yep, use them through Ameritrade, good stuff, especially for options.

Quote :

"57% YTD through November holla. Riding the wave."

Thought you unloaded half your portfolio back near Halloween? Pretty nice though if you're up that much YTD, when the Dow was at 8900.

Anyone know where to look if you want to look at the volume of a stock, as in you want to see how much of the volume was selling, or short selling. I'm trying to figure out AAPL and was just wondering if all the selling is shorts hammering it, or people just locking in gains, no real news and it's down 6% since Friday's peak when the market is positive.

12/7/2009 7:46:58 PM

probably just reaction to their lala.com acquisition

12/7/2009 7:52:39 PM

^^

Quote :

"I think we are in for a huge correction, i pulled 50% of my total portfolio out of the market today concentrating mostly on my leveraged positions and high beta plays like emerging markets, aapl, etc."

Look at where I pulled from. AAPL which I believe I sold for 192ish and is trading at ~189 now. Leveraged US mutual fund which isn't trading a lot higher right now... and emerging markets which have whipsawed a lot so i'm not sure how much potential profit i missed out on by selling a bit early...

But if you look at what I rode yearlong it was GLD, AAPL, EEM, Asia (AIA), PKX, leveraged domestics, POT, and more recently CRBQ... they pretty much all have 40-100% gains off the lows.

I'm using my sells to make a few holiday and obama tax credit purchases because i think the risk/reward ratio of the market is relatively fairly evaluated and that the consumer sales/tax incentive market distortions are great buys...

12/7/2009 11:12:14 PM

anyone have any advice for an income fund or something similar to put some money in?

i have my Roth IRA full of an aggressive mix of index funds (S&P, small/mid-cap, emerging markets, a couple of other things). I have a regular brokerage account with a couple dozen stocks (well, one or two ETFs). Pretty aggressive mix there, too. I also have a second brokerage account that's my "play" money...I day/short-term trade with it.

I then keep a good bit of money in a money-market, which used to pay 4.x% with almost zero risk. However, it isn't really paying much of anything lately. I think that I could keep a few thousand in that money market (at basically zero risk), then move the rest of it into something like a fixed-income fund/ETF. Looks like they average about 5%. Not quite as rock-solid as a MMF, but still pretty low-risk and conservative--this isn't money that I would use in an emergency (that's the MMF)--this is money for buying sports cars and speedboats and stuff--if I take a few percent downturn, I can just wait a few months to buy whatever it is.


Anyone have any favorites in this genre? Anyone think it's a particularly good or bad idea? On one hand, these funds have made a big run up in the last year or so, but then again, what hasn't? I hardly think we're back into another bubble.

12/14/2009 2:01:17 PM

Check out La-Z-Boy for '09.

http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=LZB&time=1yr

Crazy climb in an industry that's scraping along steady. I've been running through their fin. statements. Interesting write offs.

12/14/2009 2:05:22 PM

^^ it's really tough to find income out there right now.

I like the Utilities ETF, I can't think of the symbol off the top of my head but last I checked the dividend was just over 6%. It might be a little more volatile than what you're looking for but that's what I would purchase in your scenario.

There's a lot of people out there who believe the corporate spreads are still too wide, and judging by graphs of past relationships I'd tend to agree.

However, I believe that between inflation and default risk you are just playing with fire with bonds. I am 0% bonds in my portfolio at the moment.

12/14/2009 7:58:57 PM

Picked up some F on 11/30 and am up 8% as of today. Worth sitting on or should I dump it?

The call premiums aren't really worth it.

12/16/2009 2:35:22 PM

^ was about to say, sell forward calls at the least if you want to own stock. otherwise, atleast put on a trailing stop and focus on other stuff

12/17/2009 2:02:56 PM

haha, dad told me tonight that he's opening a Scottrade account, putting $10k in it, and wants me to trade it.

12/17/2009 10:22:34 PM

^ nice

12/18/2009 12:44:17 AM

better yet, he wants me to swing for the fences with it...short-term trade double-leveraged ETFs, etc.

12/18/2009 12:50:43 AM

if only he had given you the nod in March. these 3x etfs have been my aces since then:

TYH
EDC
TNA

12/18/2009 6:40:00 PM

is there a 3x DJIA long ETF? I haven't found one yet.

12/18/2009 6:43:36 PM

You and every other monkey throwing a dart at the board. The only people that didn't make money, were the ones that thought fundamentals mattered.

Just use TNA.


[Edited on December 18, 2009 at 6:45 PM. Reason : .]

12/18/2009 6:44:14 PM

^^ there isn't one

see BGU as an alternative (and MWJ for mids)

in general, i think S&P is a better indicator to track than the Dow

12/19/2009 12:08:47 AM

yeah, i agree...much more diversification. i've mostly used SSO.

when i posted that earlier today, the DJIA was down 30-40 points, but the S&P was flat or slightly up.

12/19/2009 1:22:43 AM

If you are extremely bullish on the S&P to the point where you'd buy a 3X leveraged fund if they had one, I'd say look at their regular fund (SPY) and buy some long dated OOM calls, maybe something like June around 118-120. Less money to fork over to leverage many times over the amount of shares in the ETF itself, greater upside, and you only lose what you put in if the market doesn't rise. Big caveat, the S&P is at a 52 week high obviously right now (Think it almost hit 112 3 days ago, somewhat of a pull back think we're at 110 since then).

12/19/2009 1:11:38 PM

yeah, i'm not looking at the buying the S&P right here

and I'm not looking to hold a 3x leveraged fund for any significant period of time...we're talking hours or a couple of days, most likely.

12/19/2009 1:34:54 PM

http://seekingalpha.com/article/178986-top-10-performing-leveraged-etfs-of-2009?source=email

12/21/2009 10:48:15 AM

If the current administration is going to do everything in their power to try and keep Fannie and Freddie above water as they made obvious today, what's the harm in throwing some money at the stocks where both are under $2, even though they both finished up big % wise today. Seems like it's not farfetched to think they'll be $10 in 5 years, a 500%+ return. Someone tell me the catch.

12/28/2009 7:54:10 PM

News like today makes investing in the US just seem foolish to me.

I just can't imagine the US outperforming global markets over the next 5,10, or 20 years. We look like a disaster zone.

We seem hellbent on driving all capital out of the country then saying, why isn't the economy growing fast enough!?!

I think my roth IRA contribution next week will be split evenly between China, India, and Australia. Anyone like or dislike?

12/28/2009 7:59:47 PM

Quote :

"Seems like it's not farfetched to think they'll be $10 in 5 years, a 500%+ return. Someone tell me the catch."

They might be up more than that. You might get a 5000% return. It doesn't matter if you have five times as many dollars if you can only buy half as much with it. At this rate, you'll want to invest in the countries where production is actually taking place. Maybe wheelbarrow manufacturing while you're at it.

[Edited on December 28, 2009 at 8:29 PM. Reason : ]

12/28/2009 8:27:28 PM

Quote :

"Seems like it's not farfetched to think they'll be $10 in 5 years, a 500%+ return. Someone tell me the catch."

On what valuation basis? Have a look at what happened to banks in Japan if you're interested in this gamble. And I literally mean gamble.

12/29/2009 8:52:05 PM

DJI close 12/31/99 $11,497.12
DJI close 12/31/09 $10,428.05

12/31/2009 4:46:59 PM

It's already being called "The Lost Decade".

12/31/2009 6:16:27 PM

I knew when I capitulated on SRS that it would finally turn around. I bought it at around 17 in July and I was content to sell ATM options on it for a couple months while the premiums were rich. I got my cost basis on it down to 13.50 when I was just tired of seeing it march lower and lower and sold Dec 8s for .40 when the stock was at 8.20...WANTING to get called away. Of course, it kept pooping and closed below 8. Since the premium has sucked with the low I/V I finally put a trailing stop on it for .20 in the 7.65 range and it eventually triggered at 7.53

I felt vindicated when I saw it in the 6.90 range and now I'm just shaking my head seeing it right back at 7.50.

Good riddance 2009.

12/31/2009 7:41:48 PM

Fucking payroll put too much in my 401K this year. Anyone know how to fix this? I already e-mailed them, but not sure if I should be talking directly to Fidelity.

1/1/2010 6:56:39 PM

Iirc correctly usually only payroll can fix those type of issues. Did you do a percentage or did you put it on maximizer?

1/1/2010 7:43:57 PM

I just did %. It stopped it last year when I hit the max, but maybe the roth 401K isn't set up with such logic.

1/1/2010 7:45:10 PM