Worries about an economic catastrophe in Europe are heating up again, and dramatic forecasts about doom are popping up everywhere. What's important? How did we get here? Let's put this all in perspective. Words: 2356

Based on my technical analysis gold will drop to $1,450/oz. before the end of May and then go parabolic in the next C-wave to $3,950/oz. Below is a chart of how I see the price of gold unfolding over the next while.

There’s clearly a lot of fear in capital markets around the world and that’s usually represented by a rush to short-term government bonds, in particular US dollar government bonds. With this type of fear and the need for liquidity, just about all assets get sold and gold is one of those assets. If you have a longer-term view, however, and you believe these problems will be met with additional liquidity, then gold is something you should accumulate.

As investors become more and more worried about the world economy...it makes sense to us to look into stocks that held up best in periods of market decline. Managing risk is as important as reaching for return. One aspect of managing for risk is the past behavior of particular stocks in negative market periods. Toward that end, we identified four key, recent down periods for the S&P 500, and identified those liquid stocks that were in the top quartile for price return in each of those four periods, and did at least as well as the S&P 500 index in the 2008 crash period. [Take a look!] Words: 620

So far, the decline in the market has been fairly orderly; no panic, no hysteria to get out - even the VIX has remained calm [but] I wonder how much longer the decline will continue to be orderly. Frankly, there's something eerie about what's happening and, to be honest, what's happening is almost beyond analysis. I have nothing to compare it with....I really have to go on my intuition and instinct at this point - and my instinct is to get in cash.

The Russell 3,000 is currently up 4.97% year to date, yet the average stock in the index is up 3.98% so far in 2012. This means that the bigger stocks in the market cap weighted index have been doing better than the smaller stocks. Below is a list of the 35 best performing Russell 3,000 stocks year to date, which are all up more than 75%. There are 16 stocks in the index that are up more than 100% year to date. Words: 278

You don’t need [actual] deflation—a reduction in the outstanding supply of money—to have markets react to a decrease in the rate of money supply growth..., anticipate the eventual deflation [and begin to price it into the market. Remember 2008?] Oil prices fell from $147 in July of 2008 to $33 per barrel by early 2009. The S&P 500 went into free-fall starting in September of 2008 and bottomed out in March of 2009—falling almost 50% in six months. This is what has already happened to the gold mining sector but, remember, central banks may be on a counterfeiting holiday right now but they have a history of taking very short vacations.

Global investors are now being violently whipsawed by the decisions of central banks, as they switch between inflationary and deflationary policies. The choice governments now face is to allow a deflationary depression to finally purge the worldwide economy of its imbalances, or try to levitate real estate, equity and bond prices by printing massive quantities of their currencies.

With stocks declining in the last few weeks all the various sentiment surveys point to excessive bearishness/excessive fear. That's in spite of the fact that market based indicators such as the VIX Index are not showing very much fear at all. While this market is deeply oversold and due for a relief rally, these readings are suggestive that there is more downside before we see an intermediate term bottom. [Let me explain.] Words: 290

There are hundreds of articles posted every month with supposed insights into how best to manage one's money to generate the greatest return with the least amount of risk. Not many deliver the knowledge they claim to convey. Here are a few that do and should be of particular interest to all you investment advisors/planners out there.