This is an excerpt from ETF Battles on ETFguide TV between GLD vs. GDX – two of the most popular gold ETFs by assets and trading volume. Who wins the battle? GLD and GDX duke it out in four key battle categories, including cost, performance and a mystery category. Over the past decade, the performance …
“It’s wise to remember that too much success in the stock market is in itself an excellent warning,” once quipped Gerald Loeb. After nine consecutive yearly gains, it’s fair to say that our generation has enjoyed more than its fair share of stock market success. But someday very soon, a stock market correction will happen. …
The framework for an architecturally sound investment plan is to have a core portfolio built upon core asset classes. Like the foundation of a building, your portfolio’s core must be built on a solid and stable footing. While there are many things within your investment plan that are optional, this isn’t one of them. Before …
In retrospect, Brexit turned out to be more meaningful than Grexit. And while the immediate reaction of global financial markets (NYSEARCA:VT) to the England’s decisive vote to leave the European Union (EU) was negative, it’s a stark reminder of why investing without a margin of safety is negligent. With the exception of precious metals (NYSEARCA:GLTR), mining …
Are You Still Investing Without a Margin of Safety? Read More »
Does your portfolio have a margin of safety? I ask that question because the total U.S. stock market (NYSEARCA:SCHB) has been rocky over the past few weeks and now has a year-to-date (YTD) loss of -1.23%. And since most investor underperform the stock market and the index ETFs tied to it, it’s fair to assume …
4 Things to Understand about Your Portfolio’s Margin of Safety Read More »
Keeping track of global macroeconomic trends is a daunting task. For that reason, each month we organize and rank the key market trends in our Mega Investment Theme Report by order of significance. Here’s a few of this year’s biggest themes: Commodities Get Crushed All of the hyper-inflationary dreams of commodity bulls have been shot dead. As a …
Did You Miss This Year’s Biggest Investment Themes? Here’s Four Read More »
Assassinating financial fairytales is something I enjoy doing. And the precious metals (NYSEARCA:GLTR) market is jam-packed with fiction of all sizes, flavors, and colors. One of the biggest pieces of financial propaganda promoted over the past several years is that massive monetary stimulus by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank (also known as “quantitative easing” or …
Having an entrenched view is a good recipe for failure. And perhaps, there’s no better Wall Street case study than Peter Schiff, a precious metals permabull. Never mind his incorrect calls about a U.S. dollar collapse (NYSEARCA:UUP). On Feb. 13, 2013, Schiff stubbornly reiterated his bullish view of gold, being quoted – as his public …
Two questions: How wrong have experts been about the gold market this year? And how much money has their bad advice cost people? Let’s tackle the first question, by extracting and analyzing some recent headlines: “Gold Miners Fail to Launch” – Forbes, 5/14/14 “Gold Vulnerable to Manipulative Selloff in June” – Max Keiser, 5/30/14 “Why …
The gold market is the epitome of human psychosis.* On one hand, there’s the anti-gold camp that have utter disdain for precious metals 24 hours a day, eight days a week. On the other hand, there are the survivalist types, general goldbugs, and anti-Fed clan who live, breath, and eat gold at any price. Together, …
How frightened to invest are people? So frightened, they’d rather die! A poll taken by Harris Interactive for Nationwide Financial found that 62% of surveyed respondents are afraid of investing in the stock market while just 58% are afraid of dying. Building your own investment portfolio from scratch is a fearful task for many people, …
Building Your Investment Portfolio Shouldn’t Be Scary Read More »
How would you like an 11% cut to your paycheck? That’s exactly what’s happened to income investors who own long-term Treasuries (ChicagoOptions:^TYX). At the beginning of the year, 30-year U.S. Treasury yields (NYSEARCA:TLT) were above 3.90% but have trended lower. That’s not what income investors who piled into long-term Treasuries were expecting. Their plan was to capture more …
The gold/silver ratio has been on a fierce bullish run, what does it mean? This ratio measures the relative strength of gold compared to silver and is calculated by dividing one ounce of gold’s current price by one ounce of silver’s price. The gold/silver ratio boils down to how many ounces of silver you could …
Gold vs. Silver: Is the Ratio Bullish or Bearish? Read More »
Should your investment portfolio have exposure to commodities? The problem with commodities (NYSEARCA:DBC) is that most of us don’t have storage space in the garage for a herd of cattle or pork bellies. And even if we did, it still wouldn’t give us diversified exposure to other important commodity sectors like agriculture, energy, and metals (NYSEARCA:GLTR). …
After posting its first monthly decline of 2014, gold now trades near 7-week lows and the charts are looking ugly. As readers familiar with our research know, last year we were consistently bearish on gold (NYSEARCA:GLD) and precious metals (NYSEARCA:SLV) along with mining stocks (NYSEARCA:GDX). Last year, our largest ETF gainer was the Feb. 2013 …
Napoleon Bonaparte once quipped that fame and glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever. As it turns out, that’s a fitting description of bitcoin’s illustrious past and probable future. Besides wild price swings, government bans, massive security breaches, and fraud, the $8 billion bitcoin market’s latest hurdle is something nobody (except for Marc Rich) can …
Commodities have outperformed stocks since the start of the year, but many investors have not benefited. Why? Because if there’s one category where most investment portfolios are lacking market exposure, it’s probably commodities. Unless you live on a farm, most of us don’t have enough storage space for 150 barrels of crude oil (NYSEARCA:USO) or …
2 Easy Ways to Add Commodities to Your Portfolio Read More »
What’s better? A covered call options strategy executed by the individual investor or a covered call ETF or fund that proposes to do the heavy lifting? Selling covered calls is a popular investment technique used by investors with high income or cash flow as their primary goal. The investor is “covered” because they own the …
If you drop a penny from your pocket, it will be a very small bounce. But if you drop the penny from atop the Empire State Building, the magnitude of the bounce will be great. In the case of mining stocks, that bounce from a very long and painful fall has been so great – …
Sentiment extremes should be on the radar screen of all investors. That’s because they can point to buying opportunities and sharp reversals ahead. The latest action in the gold market is a perfect example of this. Just a few short weeks ago, year-end tax loss selling was in full force and universal hatred for precious …