Hi LG, <<manias have always been about, the orchestrated transfer of wealth>> ... yes, deliciously, always, during boom times ...
Message 13113657
<<I smell blood in the water and sometimes it is our own blood. We are engaged in a struggle, a revolution, a war. What is at stake is our future way of life>>
and doom times ...
Message 15318267
<<Chapter Six - How to deal with a Revolution:
A revolution has taken place, life’s blood has been let, wealth has been transferred, lesser scapegoat culprits have been lined against the wall, propaganda machine is on full volume, and, as in the aftermath of all revolutions, new rules will be made, but not before the currency of the land is debased. Finally realizing that the emperor on the street has no cloths on, we are, together with our loved ones, left to fend for ourselves, scrambling for solutions before the reckoning of retirement>>
Chugs again after a long time:0) I am still waiting for the rain of baton …
Message 14919065
The MMD and CFZ threads are working threads and so I have made my home here for the past 12 months where I can keep my diary as I used to on the Softbank thread.
What do you see on the financial landscape and what are you doing? Do you have any doom and gloom morsels or maybe boom visions to share with the thread? The 'threaders' here are actually a fairly sensible bunch, and we occasionally have dissenting views on the definition of “collapse”, which, as it turned out, is less straightforward than Clinton’s definition of sex. I do not know of a single 'perma-bear' here on this thread, just a bunch of scared cubs.
We are marking time and entertaining each other, as in a group therapy session, holding each other back from buying, thinking about buying, or thinking about thinking about buying. We realize we cannot simply scare ourselves silly and forever wait for a collapse that may not be, and therefore we have been actively encouraging different bullish folks to inject a modicum of moderation.
I am finding the standoff between impending demand-deflation-implosion and debt-monetization-inflation-explosion lacking drama and energy. Cautiously, I think, given the duration of the boom, the degree of emergency steering and possibly over-steering attempts by the FED, the systemic skewing incorporated into any and possibly all of the following, (a) stock valuation, (b) debt quality and yield, (c) exchange rate, (c) real estate, and/or (d) global over-supply and/or under-demand, events should not remain so tepid much longer.
One and/or the other side of the standoff may win eventually. It does not matter which side ends up winning, volatility in the market place may be concluded with a bang of implosion or explosion, and some structure will be no more.
My allocation now is …
43% Cash (79% US$, 11% Euros, 8% Swiss Franc, 2% AU$) in the form of staggered fix-term deposits;
24% Bonds (mostly US$ denominated emerging market bought back in 98/99, some Euro denominated, collectively yielding above 10% on cost);
24% Industrial real estate (yielding 7% on cost, no debt);
5% Equity comprised mostly of AMGN, AOL, CHL, CMCSK, MSFT, NEM, SNE, and Hong Kong based Hongkong & Shanghai Bank, PetroChina, Sinopec, Phoenix TV, Citic Pacific; I have NEM short December Put/Call (20/22.5) options positions;
4% Metals (71% platinum, 29% gold).
And should you accuse me of being conviction-less, you would be correct. Not a lot of action for a long time ...
Message 15847224
My purpose is to run and hide, until I get away from the maddening frenzied crowd, crouch, raise my rifle, and scope.
BTW, it is good that I do not believe every word I write, however convincing I may be to myself, because if I did, I would have done this following trade and suffered mightily, regardless of which side of the paired trade I took …
Message 14911066
where as the Yahoo trade done at that time was ultimately successful, but, however, it was lucky that I did not try to duplicate my success (duplicating on NEM option trade is fun and profitable, Yahoo would be a Russian game with a revolver, 5 chambers loaded) …
Message 14909282
Luck had everything to do with success:0)
Chugs, Jay |
