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Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Petrol who wrote (149594)	2/6/2002 10:26:42 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 436258

<<. I was seriously lectured tonight about how buying gold as a safe haven for currency and stock devaluation and panic is silly...>> Funny you should mention it...I kept my GOLD shares with a full-service broker (in an account that I keep in case an emergency hedge is in order, and Fido's trading system goes down due to a massive LLCF or the like). In any event, this guy took over the account around September, 2000. I warned him at the time that I would be his MOST bearish client, without question...and that all I ask in return for giving him the account was that he not cold call me about any "ideas" (or anything else). He good-naturedly agreed, and listened to my usual Fleck-inspired bearish ranting for about 30 minutes. At the end of it, I put in the order for GOLD. My only other holding the ENTIRE time since was some BR that was a gift to me in 1975 (sold in 12/01 at 38 for a decent gain)....I've made no other transactions the entire 18 months or so, other than to move some caysh from their money market to an FDIC-insured bank fund they have. Today I call him up to sell the GOLD...he sounds depressed when he picks up the phone, takes the order, and realizes it was me (probably the client of his with the best investment performance over the last year). He perked right up, offered me a discount on the commish (?!) and invited me back to the office. He admitted that I was right about my "wacko" investment views. I told him I was genuinely sorry to be right, because quite a few of my family members didn't listen to my advice and had been whacked pretty badly. He said he had looked back at the investment plans that he had drawn up for a number of his client's, and they'd all been hit pretty hard. What could I say? It's a damn shame people can't learn some lessons except by personal experience. At least it appears the recognition wave is underway now courtesy of ENE. Stocks will become widely reviled, they will eventually represent good values and the markets will clear. Until then, it's critical that you look at stocks as (tiny) fractional pieces of operating businesses, and not as some Madison-Avenue tinged fantasy of a lottery ticket. (I know that YOU understand this, but it's more for lurkers and newbies). This thing will take few prisoners and leave fewer survivors before it's done.