Investing

The Fed is beginning to wake up to the fact that there is no easy escape from its artificial zero interest rate policy. The Fed will not be able to move very far off of the zero-bound range before the yield curve inverts and the U.S., and indeed the entire global economy, melts down. This means real yields will become more negative, the U.S. dollar will lose more of its purchasing power and economic instability will intensify over time—the perfect fundamental backdrop for rising gold prices.

In search of the best places to invest your money in the fourth quarter of 2015, I put together recommendations from a group of Barron's-ranked financial advisors [who are] deemed [to be] the top 1% in their industry. Here are their recommendations:

Our economy is falling apart all around us, and now another great financial crisis has begun. When will the “nothing is happening” crowd finally wake up? Hopefully it will be before they are sitting out on the street begging for spare change to feed their family.

The bottoming process for the junior miners after a seven year decline may be ending in the next few months as they once again come back into favor for the following ten reasons.

The cloud on the horizon is a flock of black swans. No one can predict when they might land. What can be said for certain is that, at some point, they most certainly will.

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.