on hkd, i note an anomaly :
hkd is hard pegged to the usd, which basically ought to mean that hkd deposit and lending rates must be equal to same available for usd, imo, as hkd is just a slice of the usd world;
but, in reality, while hkd lending rate is the same as usd, the deposit rate is way below usd rate, meaning folks are willing to suffer a 0.01% annualized daily call rate (0.7% annual rate on 2-year fixed deposit) by holding hkd, as opposed to holding usd and get a ‘substantially’ higher rate; meaning folks adore the hkd even though it is ostensibly the same as usd.
Back at the beginning of the BBR and this thread, many of us advocated and practiced an approach where we went high on energy and gold and uranium and … all the now usual suspects. We have been doing ‘it’ for so long that some of us forgot about normal stocks and left them for dead.
Now, ok, we are better off than we otherwise would have been, and I figure it is the season to get our own names onto things and gradually go from high cash (even though I rotate into cash of various flavors, my cash level had always and habitually been high at 50%, because I liked it, given cash is always useful) I am thinking we must edge toward low cash, by and carefully by, because we are that much closer to the end-game than we were 7-8 years ago.
So, issue, where to hide cash and what to disguise it as?
My assumption is that the empire that is usa will not go quietly into the dark interregnum without trying what all past empires had invariably tried – inexorable and debilitating monetary inflation AND fiscal default, to stave off the inevitable run of the grand cycles.
If I am right, cash is trash, as all monetary authorities is and will take the opportunity to rob their own citizenry; but, at the sorry end, real estate and other stuff can easily be hit in a collateral way as default is inherently deflationary in a monetary way. Under the circumstances, one ought to concurrently have the best (i) cash, that be gold, (ii) real estate, that be the sort I described, and (iii) business, of the sort that are absolutely necessary, such as coal biz, dental implants, and such.
If I am wrong, meaning the empire and its money do not come to a sorry end, in which case the usual inflationary expansion bets away from the epicenter of implosion ought to do ok, and one ought to always have ‘cash’ to wager on temporary and plentiful but temporary mispricing.
Contention: cash is king and trash, depending on the circumstances, but it is neither at this juncture.
Chugs, tj
p.s. is this game of 'financial survival' fun or what :0) |
