Investing

This article compares the 2012 year-end price forecasts for the S&P 500 from leading research sources with where the index is today, what various statistically generated price probabilities say about the year-end price [and, as such, how we plan to allocate our assets in the interim.] Words: 1445

Barisheff thinks the gold price could be “easily double” right now because he believes that, “What’s kept the price down is the artificial leased gold going onto the markets.”

There are those who keep insisting that there be a return to the gold standard without serious unrest and collapse. What they do not realize is that such propositions are really a call to arms. Government will not return to a gold standard because it would be a loss of power and overturn the very nature of how our republics (not real democracies) actually function....Words: 308

By smoothing out the effect of the business cycle on corporate earnings, investors get a truer picture of how expensively or cheaply stocks are priced. Yale professor Robert Shiller has popularized this concept and packaged it as the Shiller P/E ratio, alternatively known as the cyclically-adjusted P/E (CAPE) ratio, and it has become a widely followed and efficacious stock market valuation measure. Currently the ratio is standing at a 21.4 (approximately 30% higher than its long-term average) causing many value investors to adopt a cautious stance toward US stocks. [Let me explain more fully.] Words: 690

The conventional stock market investing advice is rooted in myth - rooted in a false understanding of what the historical stock-return data says about investing for the long-term....Set forth below are five reasons why I believe that the conventional stock market investing advice must soon change. Words: 2067

With China becoming the #2 economy in the world it has, without question, transformed into an enormous force in the world’s commodity markets...with many years to come of major commodity production, consumption, and importation for China and the countries that serve that commodity food chain. [Let's examine China's dominance in the commodity industry and identify investment opportunities to take advantage of continued growth.] Words: 1282

Screams about how these top-bracket income tax and capital-gains tax increases will ruin the economy by hammering spending and eliminating the incentive to work can be seen for what they are - the whining of people who don't want their taxes to go up [BUT, when it comes to the possible increase in the top tax on dividends they have a point - a BIG point - a VERY big point. Let me explain.] Words: 450

You have probably read in multiple articles that mining stocks offer leverage to the movement of the underlying metal. This hasn’t been the case over the past several years, however, which has created some confusion in the precious metals investment community. While the gold price has more than doubled (+110%) in the past five years, the AMEX Gold Bugs Index (HUI) is up only 15% so why do people keep saying that mining stocks offer leverage? Well, because they do during certain periods of the bull market. [Let me explain the situation more fully and exactly where we are in the current bull market.] Words: 677

There is a substantial debate about what asset, if any, gold price relates to or responds to....We think the most logical factor in its price as a form of money would be the ratio of the currency in circulation versus the amount of gold that could be associated with that currency...We have heard some strong opinions to the contrary...that perhaps some other assets other than currency in circulation could be used to explain gold price behavior, and therefore provide some gauge of over and under valuation in the market price. [We look at 14 different assets below.] Words: 586

The NYSE Composite and Wilshire 5000 index COULD BE forming one of the largest "Bearish Head & Shoulders" patterns in the past 100 years and IF they, in fact, are then we are about to see a 40% decline in those indices and the S&P 500 would most certainly follow suit. Take a look at the charts that tell the story. Words: 200