Investing

Let’s imagine the stock market as a whole bunch of balloons. One or two can pop loudly and everyone will jump and then laugh it off but, eventually, enough balloons will pop that the weight of the debris overwhelms the remaining balloons’ ability to keep the string aloft. Then your whole bunch falls down. In like manner, some kind of catalyst sets off every market collapse.The last balloon to pop isn’t any bigger or smaller than the others; it just happens to be last. What are some candidates for that last balloon?

The large gap between the price of copper and U.S. indices is a warning sign that investors should take into consideration before starting new positions. Here's why.

Dividend Paying Stocks are Not a Safe Substitute for Bonds! Ever! DIVIDEND PAYING STOCKS ARE NOT A SAFE SUBSTITUTE FOR BONDS! EVER! EVER! Did I write that big enough? Maybe not. Let’s try again: DIVIDEND PAYING STOCKS ARE NOT A SAFE SUBSTITUTE FOR BONDS! EVER! EVER! Here's why.

While the correlation between bonds and stocks tends to increase during economic turmoil, gold usually becomes negatively correlated with other asset classes in such times. This means that the diversification benefits of gold are maintained and may even increase in during severe crises. Let me explain further and provide some caveats.

Instead of obsessing over the timing of eventual interest rate hikes to contain inflation, it may be more useful observing the slope of the yield curve to see where the economy and the stock market are headed.

The HUI Gold Bugs index has fallen twice as much as gold’s bear market loss of 43% but, looking at the charts, both are saying the lows may already be in.

On the very last day of the last two Shemitah years, the stock market crashed so badly that it set a brand new all-time record and now we are in another Shemitah year. It began last fall, and it will end next September. Could it be possible that we will see another historic market crash?

When comparing the S&P 500 to the Barron's Gold Mining Index (BGMI), the ratio reached a high of 6.32 during the 1987-2000 bull market. The ratio today is 6.39. The higher the ratio, the cheaper gold companies are which means...we are seeing the cheapest gold stocks ever!

The market's history often provides clues to its future - we're big fans of precedent analysis - so now's a good time to delve into prior, similar instances to see what they led to [and, therefore, what we might expect in the next 2 months].

The bear market for gold is long in the tooth...and gold stocks are the most undervalued they have been in decades.