hello 2mar$, today's report
(i) this trade resulted Message 28327320 in confirmed putting to me of a bunch of nus (nuskin) shares at 40. i am comforted by booking the 3.70 premium even as the mkt price is now at 35-36.
i am now a committed 'long term buy and holder' until such time it becomes opportune to short covered calls. i expect / hope that soon it would be such time.
(ii) i fear it is not just nus in the vortex, but our entire way of making gains by investing / speculating (depending on time horizon)
(iii) we are now one trading session away from the end of 2012, i am up 17% on actively traded stuff all because of engagement with leveraged gold early on in the year and w/ silver mid-year, even as au/ag ytd are down relative to a lot of indices.
the problem is that the actively traded stuff is a diminishing portion of the overall stack of chips.
silver @ ~0%
gold @ +6.1%
s&p500 @ +11.5%
dow @ +4.4%
nasdaq @ +13.3%
no matter, for trading gold was trouble-free, and did what it was supposed to do, namely up, and shall soon be boosted by the solution to the fiscal collide, and besides, even as the s&p and the nasdaq are up double digits, preciously few investors actually scored double digits.
(iv) am thinking that we still must measure all alternative speculations against the trouble-free wager that be gold.
i figure we still must address the 'gold imperative', for in a world of zirp, all investments are simply wagers, and the more solid wagers are traditionally better than paper speculations during such fiat money inflation times, w/o exceptions, at least i cannot think of any.
the tally below kicks off the stance into 2013
Traded
-0.25% cash
12.40% paper metals (au:pgm:ag @ 92:5:3)
5.97% equities (gdx, gdxj, fnv, slw, nem, abx, paas, tplm, mcd, nus, remx, ares, and cpf in usa, alligator energy in australia, hkex in hong kong, and vermilion energy and petrobank energy in canada)
Non-traded
17.05% private equity (incl gold mine / gold loan, teeth, crude additive, whatever, all marked at cost or lower)
19.76% physical metals (au:pgm @ 73:27)
45.07% real estate rentals and plays (all essentially marked to transaction market)
amongst all of the above, there are only 5 conviction trades, namely gold, platinum, silver, the mines, and hk real estate.
(v) bottom line is that i believe stock speculation shall become even more difficult than it already has been for 2011-2012, and the game would only be made easier if we have another lehman moment.
the lehman moment can happen in the currency arena or the equity coliseum, sovereign debt ring, or the municipal market, iow, can happen any and everywhere, and can coincide with a derivative kaboom underneath a student loan cratering all the while underneath a flash crash bidless night.
i am not watching for signs of green shoot, because it is a waste of time until and unless we see signs that the authorities recognizes the correct problems.
2013 should be interesting.
cheers, tj |
