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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Mining Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IngotWeTrust who wrote (2621)	10/8/2001 5:49:33 PM
From: loantech	Respond to of 4051

Gold Tutor, You do put up some long messages so I have one too. Let's see here is some of my background to help answer your questions. I am quite busy helping keep up our small home, being a husband, a father to two teenagers, working full time in the home loan business, trying to have some personal time to workout and to just vegetate. So my stock picking skills are nil and I don't plan on polishing them up that much. As you have said in some posts there are some newsletter writers here and some quite knowledgeable people here possibly including your self that exchange information. Some may be here to tout stocks after they have bought them and sell after or during the subsequent run up in price. I understand that and would expect these individuals including yourself to position themselves in the market first and then start blabbing. Jim Steele says he doesn't buy the stocks he touts and I believe him because well I just have faith that there are still some people left that speak the truth. Claude may buy stocks before they show in his newsletter, his front page discloses that he may own the stocks he dicusses. Russ whom I personally believe to be an astute investor and a person of good character also positions himself in a stock before he discusses it on these threads. And so do others I am sure. I will also be interested in your two picks and may ride on your bandwagon also after you have positioned yourself and disclosed and discussed the merits of your position. I feel as though Claude and Russ personally believe in their stock choices and peddle them not only to support their positions but to build a market by informing an audience consisting of people like myself who are further down the food chain. I do not believe they wish ill will to any of their audience from either these boards or Claude's newsletter. And I hope they profit from it and believe they wish others to profit as well. I have watched Claude's picks for a couple of years and have not seen that many clinkers if any. Had I followed his picks and bought them I would be money ahead from my personal approach that resembles throwing darts. As to how I pick the stocks I buy and this is no secret to the people here. I do somewhat like George Bush and form a coalition of thought by contacting Claude, Jim Steele, Russ and another person whose opinion I trust but is not as high profile on the boards and triangulate an opinion and throw in my personal thought like all these guys like a stock but I don't like the fact that its in Ghana for instance so I don't buy it or maybe all of them like a stock, the company has reserves and cash so I say what the heck and buy it. This puts me further down the chain of buying something early but far ahead most of the pack in my opinion. From earlier posts you know my uneducated but personal reasons for investing in the mining sector,1.It's been down trodden, 2.The press and mainstream investors seem to hate it,"dead", "barbaric relic", currencies are fine for smoothing out exchange rate differences, etc.3. too much debt in the world as a whole.4.As far as I am concerned and I don't know much the general stock market rose too fast and too high for quite some time so it's overvalued as a whole so I bought into mining shares. You had some questions about credit. Please bear in mind that I do not have an education "except from hard knocks" in banking or the credit field. I just remember from the 70's that a lot of people said our goverment owed too much. Well look at the amount that is owed now. Read on the net and in the newspaper about a lot of company stock buybacks done on the back of borrowing to help out good old boy stock options and to drive a companies stock higher. Why was this done I don't know. But I personally feel its harder to pay back money than it is to earn it. So there is too much corporate debt some of it went for too much expansion etc.In the home loan business you can buy a home with less down, worse credit and higher debt to income ratios and it has gotten a little looser for the last 5-6 years. I have been in the business for 16 years now BTW. Why I am not sure. But I can tell you from just the loans I see and this is an opinion again people plain owe too much money. Why do they borrow all this money. I suspect it is becuase a lot of peoples egos are being fed by the old keeping up with the Jones syndrome. I gotta have an SUV because my neighbor has one is the only reason I can see. Also I need a Mc Mansion because me and the little lady are so busy flashing around town the old 2000 square foot ranch is not good enough so I need a 3800 square footer with a big lot and lots of debt. When should a mining company borrow?I would guess when they can lower their payments by refinancing into a lower rate like everyone else. Or when they have a deposit that can be developed and and the loan can be payed back and a good rate of return be left for the company and stockholders. As to the more involved questions you have on when to borrow I don't know and it appears that with the debt structure a lot of companies have they didn't know the proper time to borrow either. What the heck I hope it works out for me. I am a prudent and thrifty spender and saver and have a decent amount of savings and very little debt. Hope to ride some coat tails on stock picks and increase my savings. If it works great a lot of people here get the credit for my success, if I fail its my own darn fault and just adds a few years to the time in the daily salt mines. As you say "your turn", Tom