didcrywolf

Own Gold? Time to Fold

hum!
I am worried nobody here seems to echo my views on GOLD so I guess I have to comment and hope to keep the debate going...

As a MM I never thought of gold as more than a 5%-10% paper play for clients looking for diversification. Last month my WHOLE world view changed!
Gold, the USD and inflation is so OLD thinking! God we are almost in 2009 people!

I bought physical at $730 and now at $837.50 a couple of months later, I still have a rationale for owning those 10oz bars. Looks nice on the night table too!
1) Treasury and Fed follow a path of keeping treasuries extremely low hoping that the economy kick starts and the residential mortgage does not continue to implode. They are pushing on a rope. WARNING! BAD PUN COMING: The skeleton in the closet is actually the Corps. bonds. The spread on corps. is wider than the grand canyon so it isn't working. Between strapped consumers and maligned corps. you need to wait for public projects to work their magic in 201x....
2) In 2009 many companies will fail because of their balance sheets and their inability to refinance. If you try to lower your selling price to keep market share you will die a quicker death. Economies will continue to contract in 2009 so many companies NEED to fail.
3) The gorillas in the room by 2010 will be the ones with clean books, they will watch their competitors fade away ( 70,000 manufacturers in China already closed shop this year) and they will set the price! They will have better workers , better salesmen and they will work out arrangements with the distribution channels. That will bring back inflation
4) I sold GLD as I don't want to encourage paper gold when I can have the stuff lying around my house. I also sold CEF.A (TSE) because it had managed a 16.5% premium to NAV ( why should I pay .3% MER for a premium when I can own the stuff at my house?). When you own physical you don't have to worry about premiums, discounts, MER, segreagated, pooled etc.
5) I have started to buy a 5% position in PST (Lehman 7-10 yr short Treasury fund) I will add 5% each month and within 2 years this thing will triple
6) Better prospects for 2009-2011 are heavy equipment liquidators, security guards companies and the ability to convert Gold bullion to Huans.
7) Poor Obama is going to inherit the same dismal economic conditions as Carter did and in 2012 another Reagan whack job will show up.( My fav. prez was 41)
8) I got my broker statements with this kind of logic and netted 21.6% In October and 10.2% in November. Thank you SKF I love you! December looks good. Just wished I had the coj... to play currencies 900 pips on the euro TODAY!!!!!!!!! amazing times


Good luck and good trading to you in the new year

The Winners Will Be Those Who Look to Gold and Commodities

the largest US pork exporter says business is awful as China is going back to a bowl of rice ... no animal protein... Don Coxe is yesterdays news... best to find analysts that play simple demographics... Boomers are aging and disposable income is going down 1% a year... so you can print all the money you want, you can guarantee all the loans to losers like GM and Ford, the only people who will do well is people who learn to live frugally and invest with the same vision!
Meantime I got gold bars all over the place

Is Gold A Sucker's Bet?

I believe that all the hedge fund redemptions are behind many commodities being sold out and exacerbated by retail investors panicking with their September statements and margin clercks selling out anything with a pulse.
This is why the USD held up but it is it's last hurrah. Within the next 4 weeks there will be a run out of the USD, the British pound and I am not sure there are enough Yen and Euros buyers to make a case for gold bears. What you do not want to do though is buy gold futures or stocks as they will have distortions caused by still unwinding positions. My advice is to buy a gold bullion fund with a very low MER (management expense ratio). I use the canadian CEF.A. (Central Fund of Canada). I play it 6 times in the last 24 months buying below 12 and selling above 14.55. I do believe that this time gold will reach 1500 dollars as the US system is about to crumble.

Alcoa Will Shine - Barron's

Not sure Alcoa will be above $40 by year end. I do not think the company's MGMT can extract all the value on its own and the company needs to merge. Unfortunately as credit contracts globally, I am not sure who could come into the US in an election year where a protectionist wind blows strong in Washington and start to bid up the stock. With the airlines, autos and housing in a tailspin, I don' think the compnay can be epxected to have ANY blowouts Quarters until mid 2009. I own the stock but sold calls to bid my time. A straight long position in the stock sounds too risky right now and Barron's always made me money writing premium on their stock ideas!!!!

A Contrarian Look at Pfizer

First of all, I own the stock but do not necessarily recommend it!
Pfizer needs to rework its organization. There was an interesting article in the Harvard Business review last month that suggest big pharma needs to separate best of breed vs. first to show into separate organizations. Pfizer isn't really excelling at either today.
Tomorrow
Of those 102 medecines in the pipeline which are which?
Of the successful ones, how much money will they need to generate just to cover the coming off patents?
How many have a market for $3BB/yr?
PUNDITRY
I believe with such a big cash hoard, the company could reinvent itself and take advantage of much more promising areas in best of breed than waste time in US litigation laden high risk and poor reward scenarios for new products...
In conclusion, stock is at 10 year low because market realizes that what was once low picking fruit and easier to solve medical issues, is now a much tougher market with patent expiry coming ever faster and you need to beat people at their own game otherwise generics will have you for lunch. Now if they insist on spending investor money, they should look at the Monsanto play book for a clue on how to run a successful organization in the 21st century.

2008 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meeting: Detailed Notes

Thnak you very much for taking the time to do this report :) Was just curious to see if this was the whole six hours with the lunch break or just portion