jacflash

Gold Transforming into a Completely Demonetized Wealth Asset

Gold's return versus a properly-managed global stock portfolio is paltry. It will continue to be paltry indefinitely, as gold is ultimately just another fiat currency. (What is the actual intrinsic value of a lump of soft metal? Not much. What's it worth? Whatever a bunch of folks like this guy say it is. Who cares?)

Anyone who says otherwise is selling something, including, it would seem, FOFOA.

GMAC Plan Is Bad - Blodget's Alternative

...and then after a couple of years of being a stay-at-home dad, he put on the big-boy pants, owned up to all of it without making excuses in one of the best pieces of writing to ever appear on Slate.com, and has since done a pretty good job of reinventing himself as a savvy, knowledgeable market pundit. He's a smart dude and this is worth a listen.

The Nobel prize in economics is awarded Monday, and two even-odds finalists couldn't be more different (one an efficient-markets Chicago-schooler; the other an Austrian behavioral economist). Christopher Swann says no one economist is that valuable; let's dynamite the whole prize.

If Fama gets a Nobel I will barf for days. Nobody has been more thoroughly discredited by events over the last few years. Nobody.

Maybe the "New Frugality" isn't a sure-thing culture shock, says James Surowiecki. Could be that people are spending less just while they have less - and not even that much less. Most of the consumption drop can be traced to gas and cars, and spending's been rising for four months.

I think history will file the "New Frugality" in the same dustbin with the "Death of Irony" after 9/11... I'd give it another 6 months, max.

NAR's Lawrence Yun warns faulty appraisals are stalling home sales: "In the past month, stories of appraisal problems have been snowballing from across the country with many contracts falling through at the last moment. There is danger of a delayed housing market recovery and a further rise in foreclosures if the appraisal problems are not quickly corrected."

The "fault" is that the appraisers are finding that the market doesn't support the seller's asking price. The NAR would like a return to a few years ago, when the "local" (eg friendly) appraiser would magically appraise the property at whatever the realtor said it was worth.

Shame on you, Lawrence Yun.

Book Review: More Mortgage Meltdown, by Whitney Tilson

A lot of that talk about the prime mortgages comes from Tilson... not that he's wrong.

3 Commodity ETFs with High Probability of Near-Term Success

This is not a good time to be buying UNG if you are hoping for a significant short-term pop, for all of the very good reasons discussed above.

This is, however, a good time to be accumulating a position in natural gas for longer-term portfolios, as current price levels are simply not sustainable over the next 2-3 years and a significant rise is inevitable.

With so many stocks hitting fully-valued levels, there aren't too many easy opportunities left. One could do a lot worse than to put some of those recent profits into UNG as a longer-term play.

Precious Metals ETFs Lack Proper Insurance

On Jun 02 09:02 AM Bob Coleman wrote:

> By the way, I do not need to talk my book.

Then why did you post what amounts to a sales letter on SA?

Methinks you doth protest a bit too much.

Precious Metals ETFs Lack Proper Insurance

This article takes "talking one's book" to a new level, even by SA standards.

Why Is Oil Creeping Back Up?

All of the above comments make sense. Oil is climbing in US dollar terms for all the same reasons goldbugs keep saying gold *should* be climbing much more than it is. I say, and have been saying for awhile, that if you're really concerned about future inflation in the US, skip the gold (or at least augment your gold holdings) and buy oil and gas ETFs and/or stocks like TOT or BP or XOM. The prospect of a near-term spike is only icing on the cake.

BTW, oil's up significantly from its lows, but natural gas is still cheap. Get it while you can.

Six Trends to Profit From

On May 30 12:13 PM La Marque wrote:

> The Slimming of American Bodies
> High fructose corn syrup & diet drinks are the problem, not sugar.
> As long as people think they can eat more while drinking diet drinks,
> obesity will persist. HFC appears to inhibit the body's ability to
> metabolize sugars. I only drink Jones Soda, Blue Sky & Mountain
> Dew Throwback.

HFCS may indeed turn out to be uniquely nasty, but you're wrong -- total calories are the problem. Try drinking water instead (or plain unsweetened iced tea if you want the caffeine). Soda, whether sweetened with cane sugar or HFCS, is for dessert, not hydration.

The idea that regular consumption of Jones Soda or Pepsi Throwback -- tasty as they are -- is somehow a healthy choice is completely ridiculous, and only serves to show how far away from reality this debate has drifted.

How Today’s 2.46% Dividend Yield Could Destroy Your Wealth

I agree with both of the above commenters -- dividends are in decline for reasons other than economic, which means that your comparisons to past periods aren't useful, BUT you're right that the fundamentals aren't improving and we're all but certain to go right back down before a real bull is born.

Consumer Confidence: Is the Bottom In?

Consumer confidence is hardly a leading economic indicator, "Doctor". The economy is not driven by mass mood swings.

But it is indeed "too soon to say that actual growth will resume in 2009".

Book Review: Seven Years to Seven Figures

If you want a good book on writing hard-sell web copy that doesn't involve endless sales pitches for $2000 seminars and the like, try Maria Veloso's "Web Copy That Sells". If you want a guideline to building wealth via information products that won't make you barf, try Tim Ferriss's "The Four-Hour Workweek". Avoid anything by Mark Joyner, Joe Vitale, and this guy.

Great review, btw. Spot-on.

Yale's legendary financial wizard David Swensen says it's time to buy TIPS: "We've had this massive fiscal stimulus... and it's hard to see how that doesn't translate into pretty substantial inflation." Much, much more in Swensen's interview on Consuelo Mack's WealthTrack. More on TIPS from the Treasury.

I agree with both of you. TIPS are an interesting creation, but the yields will lag returns from commodities and (some) global stocks if and when inflation gets ugly (which won't be soon), and the fact that they can't be held effectively in tax-deferred accounts makes them kind of pointless for Joe Retail.

Swensen is usually smarter than this. Am I missing something, or is he?