I'm starting to see infomercials for gold, people freaking out and talking about how much money they've made on oil futures, and things of that nature. All of the buzz is around materials and resources.
Seems to me that loose money went from the market, to real estate, to oil/gold/etc. Some are estimating that close to 30% of the cost of oil futures is related to speculation (talk about ultimately digging your own grave -- didn't we learn this from flipping houses already? I wonder how many of these investors are losing their 'profits' filling their SUVs up).
I've been reading a lot of finance books lately, and when it comes to investing they all say the same thing -- don't follow the crowds. The best buying time is when "blood is running through the streets." So, while it's tempting to chase the short term profits being made on these things, it all seems incredibly similar to the situations that I've read about.
Time to buy the
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index. Automate that bad boy and ride this all the way down (and ultimately, out ;)
Anyone disagree? Lots of micro and macro things to consider these days.
Comments...
(Page 1)1. Take a look at GLD. It's risen a ton over the last year. Sure, it's pulled back recently, but gold movement should be the inverse of the dollar movement. Scared people jump from the $ to resources. Dollar comes back, resources fall.
I'm not sure gold is the safe play right now. I've shorted the financial sector with some success.
Take a look at CHK, Chesapeake Energy. If you go to google finance, on the left, there's "Insider transactions." I love to see the insiders acquiring stock and this is a great tool Yahoo Finance has. The CEO has been buying like mad, even at prices near double 3mo ago. Pretty impressive.
Just my $0.02. =)
1:37PM on Jun 11th 2008 by Bill
2. Check out the Scwhab 1000, indexed mutual fund that mirrors (plus some) the SP 500.
Or better, the SP 500 spider (SPY), you can buy as stock with out the costs of a mutual fund yet with the indexed reliability of an indexed fund.
Also Berkshire (BRKB), Warren Buffet's company is almost as good as a mutual fund since the company is essential run the same in that it is a managed aggregate and spread risk. Hard to buy unless through micro-shares through Sharebuilder and the like.
12:16AM on Jun 12th 2008 by Tim