Hello EP, I will again stay home today, to kill the nasty cough, by drinking plenty of hot water boiled around pears and laced with ginger and honey, guzzling chicken soup sprinkled with rice, sweating out Chinese medicine, and napping, in between some light work and heavy computer gaming, and watching the Coconut waddle around.
Recovery can be fun, as long as one does not have to do it very often, and as long as one gets to recover.
I have stopped with the Tamilflu; it seems I jumped the drug, thinking I had the flu which I did not. The Tamilflu has gone back to join its cousins, in a secure cabinet, as one would store precious anything.
BTW, Hong Kong has run out of flu shots. By hindsight, I had strongly urged my extended family and office to take the flu shots a few weeks back in the nick of scratching time. There is some satisfaction to dodging bullets, but only if successfully :0)
On the allocation (investment is stance for attack, allocation is cowering in defense), I note:
(a) Platinum has been hitting highs, and now at quarter century peak marketwatch.com “Platinum is "headed much higher ($2000+) due to deliberate worldwide central banks paper currency destruction and Indian and Chinese demand," said John Stafford, editor of Stafford's Investment Strategy Letter.”
(b) As mentioned over the past few years, platinum, like Tamilflu, has long been unavailable in HK its most convenient bullion (Koalas, Eagles) form. The banks only buy them and had stopped selling them about four years ago.
(c) Tamilflu is bid-only, at HKD 1,000 per course; a small increase from HKD 200 per course when my office arranged to stock up. Our Tamilflu is not for sale.
(d) The Panda gold bullion distributor in HK chinacoin.com.hk is now just surviving on collectible coin sales. They are out of Panda 1 oz gold bullion. The 2006 will not reach them until sometime after February. Four months of gold-less-ness for a gold dealer :0) I will have to go for the Eagles, Koalas, and Maples in the mean time.
(e) The trend is clear. We may well live to see the day, perhaps soon, when the HK banks are out of Eagles, Koalas, and Maples; whereas we will not have to deal with a day when there is no CDMA in HK, at least not in the shops, ask-only and bid-less ;0)
(f) My wife and I have decided to pass on the endowment insurance proposal put to us as a savings method for the Coconut’s education, since (i) the policy is denominated in USD, and (ii) its likely returns will not likely best the devaluation of the currency in combination with the inflation of education. We will just keep buying and not selling gold coins, and invest in energy of various sorts.
(g) We will sell the platinum and/or gold bullions when (i) we need to, or (ii) monetary reset is well underway.
(h) Some eyes are on the RMB, directed by folks whose brain tells them that the RMB will be revalued ahead of Bush’s arrival in Beijing this Saturday. Folks are thinking too highly of both the RMB and Bush. Yes, Bush will arrive in Beijing. No, the RMB will not rise. My guesses.
(i) I am not big on Euro, to the same extent that I am not enthusiastic about learning Latin.
(j) I am not hot on the AUD, for the nation is going in the same direction as the States, spending and not saving, at the cusp of a real estate collapse, and involving itself in a perpetual war without an end-game.
(k) I am enthusiastic about the USD, for the moment, for a while, until the home owners are hoarse from screaming and are beginning to be put out of those homes and/or going on to the street in million J6P marches on Washington for a collective bailout.
(l) I am OK with the CAD, for the moment, for lack of anything more obviously better.
(m) I am holding fire on energy, waiting to see what goes up or down. I am uncomfortable about being out of them for the most part, but more so than I would be if I were in them, for the most part. I hold a few tranches of Vermilion, a couple of tranches of Canadian Oil Sand, and some dollops of Peyto, Petrobank, OptiCanada, Encana, Petro Brasil, Suncor and Bangkok Aviation Services.
(n) The only miners I hold: Aflease and Pan American Silver, and a long call/short put position on Harmony (January strike 10 ;0)
(o) I am maintaining shorts against the usual housing and sub-prime suspects, viewing them as my altruistic contribution in the battle between financial good and monetary evil.
New money from surplus and savings will enter the pot at the end of the year, and the moolah will remain in liquid form in the majority, and be converted into solid, mineralized form in the minority, as is my normal practice, so that whatever happens, not all of the moolah will transform into the gas phase and vaporize away.
2006? It will be a harsh year, a safe guess.
<<used car>> ... will get cheaper, perhaps unbelievably so. The secondhand Hummers will drop in price to justify bargain buy, even if taking account of USD 5/gallon gas.
<<how to exit metals>> ... no need to fret now. We will know when we know, when the lines outside the coin shops are long, going around the block, and the folks lining up have tears welling up from their eyes, and nose running, unnoticed, clamoring for the politicians to make more gold available.
or, when the swaying and chanting folks sing about gold that is redemption, and platinum that is salvation.
Chugs, J |
