Hello Malcolm, SARS JOURNAL 2004 & YEAR of the MONKEY VACATION DREAMING postings: T minus 3 days:
The portfolio is up 4.46% year-to-date, or 37% closer to 2004 end-of-year target; but I am troubled.
I just came back home from a relaxing snack in my fishing village travelchinaguide.com neighborhood. I had a glass of red wine and a pizza, with mushrooms, black olives, garlic and Italian sausage as fixings. Today is not warm, but I ate in partial open-air environment, and was all bundled up in wool sweater and scarf.
During munch, while watching girls walking by unseasonably dressed in jeans held up at a point below their hip bones, I reflected on the ‘state of is’, and thought I had heard a disembodied voice whispering, ‘Jay, get your adrenaline pumped, and get set to fear me’.
My thoughts turned to the nature of the monster we are forced to deal with Message 19650817 .
I am metaphorically pacing, energetically, in circles, and complete with worry beads in hand.
The signs are ghastly and I am agitated, not about SARS or my vacation that will start in a few days time, but about the Year of the Monkey.
The Monkey year will supposedly be dangerous for both the real small geopolitical world and the less real, heavily leveraged, and terribly vast financial universe.
What is the world coming to? Take for example, should the officialdom do the obvious counter-measure to this terror initiative Message 19675295 on air-travelers to and within the US, then travel to and within the US stops.
In line with the danger, if one believes the Chinese lunar calendar description of the coming scheme, the year is extremely bullish for metals.
I chant, "believe Force, trust Power, exploit Field, feel Pulse, tap Vein, sup Energy, and tune to Rhythm, else we are lost"
I may have mentioned about a thousand times on this thread that I enjoy the on-line Unreal Tournament Last Man Standing Death Match game unrealtournament.com .
Sometimes, after I connect into a game server, I find the environment very quiet even though the particular match is known to have as many as 20+ contestants already. Everyone on-line is hidden, thinking his own thoughts, waiting for something to happen. They typically do this when each contestant only has one life (i.e. cannot re-spawn if killed).
During such occasions, I quickly sign out of the game, and before re-entering, I use the spectator mode of participation to scope out the landscape, from my ‘roaming ghost’ perspective, and then proceed to see what each contestant is doing by looking at the landscape from his perspective. In this fashion, I get to see where everyone else is hidden, how they are equipped, and what they are looking at.
I then re-enter the game and get busy trying to kill them all, with no mercy and less regret.
With that preamble out of the way, I relate to you a few anecdotes.
The Annual Party That Is A Contrary Indicator – the big play of 2004
I had a lunch with an Australian friend yesterday, and at the table next to ours sat a couple who attends a party held by a mutual friend that I have traditionally attended. The annual party is held sometime during the month of December, and it has been the case (and is a running joke amongst some of us) that whatever aggregate bullish conversation takes place at the party, sell, and whatever consensus bearish thoughts get expressed at the event, buy.
The party indicator has worked for the buy-in and sell-out of Hong Kong real estate, Red Chip Mania, Asian Financial Crisis, DotCom Boom, Currency Bust, Nasdaq Reflation (although I chose to ignore this play) and The Age of Gold/Commodities.
I was not able to attend the party this past December because I was in Beijing, and so I interrupted the couple at the next table and asked what the gist of the conversation was at the December party. The man, a bond trader, said, 'the conversation all around was how wonderful everything is'.
I just spoke on the phone to the host of the party, and yup, he is hunkering down.
The host also noted that the guests at the above-mentioned party were finding it increasingly difficult to hold USD/HKD in the current context Message 19675660 , but with the exception of my friend the host who tags along on some of my trades, no one else is even thinking gold.
I thought, after mulling over what I heard, 'oops, stocks will crash, bonds will tumble, but the USD will bounce up, even though the gold bull may have a long healthy future yet'.
So, is there a scenario where stocks, bonds, real estate and non-USD currencies gets trashed, and the USD cash and gold goes up? This is the play indicated by the 'contrary Xmas party'.
In fact, the answer to my question is yes. The trigger would be stagflation, accompanied by a rising USD interest rate AND a rising gold price!
2004 is getting difficult to navigate already, for I may need to short more of the general equity market soon, in some fashion, or by other ways, even as I might have to de-camp my cash troops from Euro/Yen/DKK/AUD/CAD territories and send them into USD-space
Here are some postings about the Contrary Indicator Parties past, and you may recognize some of them, as they are from the magical Softbank era :0)
Message 12436491 <<January 1st 2000>>
Message 14980719 <December 8th, 2000>>
Message 16843039 <<December 29th, 2001>>
Message 16843049 <<December 29th, 2001>>
There was no contrary party held by my friend in 2002 Xmas season as he and family were out of town, and so the party started in earnest on Wall Street in 2003.
Taiwan
My wife and I had dinner with a pair of friends last night. The man is a Taiwan speculator/investor belonging to one of top five substantial Taiwan families that is in tune with the information flow.
I am told to watch out for February when the Taiwan president will decide the content of the March referendum, as in whether it will contain language such as "if China does not cease targeting Taiwan with its missiles, Taiwan will declare independence", and I am told that all eyes are on the likely standing of the Nationalist KMT Party (against independence) vs the ruling party (for independence). If KMT looks to do badly in the election, then capital flight will likely commence.
I was interested in the direction of any possible capital flight, so that I can lay in ambush and shoot the capital absconders as they exit Taiwan and enter my kill-space. Alas, I am told that the direction of capital flight may be to all of USD, Euro and gold, as opposed to just the traditional flight destination, USD.
Gold
Following tradition, I purchased Message 19675714 <<January 10th, 2004>> a fair quantity of the 2004 mintage Chinese Panda gold bullion coins as I have done since 1983. Since I had meetings all through the day, I lugged my bag full of coins with me for a whole day, and my arms are tired and wrists are not feeling great.
In the course of the day, several folks passed my bag to me at the end of meetings and get-togethers and were all surprised at the weight. Funnily enough, their comments were all along the lines of, ‘what you got in there, gold?’. No one guessed dumbbells.
After a session at a reflexology shop, an attractive young lady at the baggage storage asked the same question, and I answered yes. She joked, ‘can you carry me away too?’
I thought about her question afterwards, and I knew, however attractive the girl is, my gold is mine :0)
I think of my physical gold and platinum as my private central bank reserve, not to be sold unless really desperate, not to be loaned out under any circumstance, and not to be borrowed against in all cases.
Ok, that is enough about the big play of 2004, Taiwan, and gold.
I have wrapped up most of what I must do before wandering of to vacation, and most importantly, I believe I have gotten the portfolio to a state where it will manage on its own while I am off.
Chugs, Jay
SARS JOURNAL 2004 & YEAR of the MONKEY VACATION DREAMING postings:
Message 19632541
<<December 28th, 2003>>
Message 19646484
<<January 2nd, 2004>> |
