bcr

5 Reasons to Save the Greenback

The major remaining factor favoring the US is our extremely advanced military. "If you don't want our dollars anymore, maybe we should just invade, capture your natural resources, and make you pay us taxes!"

If only our next president could be so brazen.

Disclosure: Half joking

Gold and the Dollar: Value is in the Eye of the Beholder

I agree regarding inflation but disagree that gold will fully protect. Far better to hold a basket of commodities, including things you can eat, stay warm with, transport yourself with, etc. Gold has minimal intrinsic value to most people; like bonds/equities/etc, precious metals are basically just worth what Some Other Sucker will pay for them. Disclosure: Long GLD, SLV, USO, soon DBA

Silver: The Last Great Thing - For Now

Physical storage on $3.5B of silver costs far below 1% a year due to economies of scale. IIRC storing a few thousand dollars of silver costs ~0.75%/yr retail (kitco), just 0.25% more than SLV charges (0.50%). Even so I'm holding SLV for now, for convienence. IMHO the banking situation is not bad enough to justify physical delivery quite yet.

ELEMENTS Currency ETNs Aim to Outperform Comparable ETFs

Also, can someone explain the (supposed) advantages of currency ETF and/or ETNs over direct currency trading via a forex broker such as oanda?

ELEMENTS Currency ETNs Aim to Outperform Comparable ETFs

when will they begin trading? 2/25?

MacroShares Oil Funds Offer Arbitrage Opportunity

Are UCR/DCR convertible into oil futures or the physical commodity? If no, why is there reason to believe they will ever return to tracking the oil price? If yes why does this huge arbitrage opportunity exist?

Read This Before Buying E*Trade

So basically you're exiting your ETFC position because you think public
information from E*Trade's IR website is not already accurately priced
into the stock?

heh.. I guess it's good to have people on both sides of the market.
Can I buy your shares? I trade technically and ETFC flashes "buy me", up
80.6% in 20 sessions w/ 5.5% stddev. I'll sell if/when it drops through the
trailing stop loss. The trend is your friend, except at the end when it bends...

David Swensen On Keeping It Simple

Ultra low cost US equity ETFs such as SPY are not really diversified. Other major asset classes (commodities, real estate, foreign bonds, etc) are necessary to be truly diversified and if you want to hold these as a 'mere mortal' you are going to have to accept 0.75%+ fees

Gold's Just Getting Started - Barron's Interview

You can buy the yuan through some forex houses, such as oanda.

Picking Apart the WSJ's Manipulative Gold Reporting

The major problem with gold is that, for most people, it does not have any inherent value, other than what Some Other Sucker will exchange for it (hmm, kind of like the USD, bonds, stocks, etc). Gold does not directly satisfy any fundamental human desire: I cannot eat or drink gold. I cannot stay warm with it. I cannot entertain or transport myself with it. I cannot protect my family with it. I cannot use it as a reproductive lure (ok, maybe).

I would prefer a custom basket of oil, wheat, maize, coffee, cocoa, etc as a USD inflation hedge. Except for oil and gold, though, most commodities are basically inaccessible. So a lot of money is chasing gold right now.

6 Reasons to Short Housing Stocks

strutzma, can you break down the $350/day/house? Is the majority of that financing?

20 Year Snapshot of Asset Class Returns

Missing real estate, commodities, and foreign currencies