THE COMPLEAT INVESTOR: Part 2

In Part One, I dangled before my reader the promise of a long term investment plan anyone can follow, that really works.




In an ideal world, such a plan would need to be seriously easy to set up and maintain, offer the prospect of strong but steady growth over the ultra-long term and, by avoiding those occasional but potentially devastating bear markets, take full advantage of the remarkable wealth-building power of compound returns.  

THE COMPLEAT INVESTOR: Part 1

I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishin'.

Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, 1653

As the early nights draw in, icy winds and snows descend and we plunge headlong into the deep mid-winter, On the Money finds himself curling up on the sofa, throwing back a couple of port & brandys and taking stock.  

STOCKS: Iceberg dead ahead

Click and open in a new window to enlarge to monster size

There are now so many signals calling for a top in the stock market it's hard to know where to begin...

AN IRISHMAN LETS FLY IN THE WINDY CITY

Keepin' it real.

Stand by for a major new OntheMoney post, 

coming soon...

STOCKS: Shanghai Blues signals New York State of Mind

Now let's take another angle on the theme from my previous post.  In the past few weeks, Chinese investors' worries have pulled their stock index back down into the mire from which it had only just managed to escape.  If past patterns persist, this is not good news for our markets.

CHINA: What if they built a city, and nobody came?

In a few years time, when people are shaking their heads wondering whatever happened to the Chinese economic miracle, remember this image.

STOCKS, PRECIOUS METALS, COMMODITIES: A whole lot of bull

Whatever you do, don't look up

Evidence is accumulating that the recent breakout to new highs in many world markets may have been nothing but a giant head-fake.

GROUNDHOG DAY

You've seen this movie before

Ever wished you could do something utterly selfish, wicked and outrageous and never have to pay the price?  

Dollar breaks down - CORRECTION STYMIED

The almost perfect correlation between the US dollar & stocks -
until that breaks or the dollar bottoms, markets are heading higher

Following the election results and the Fed's announcement of renewed quantitative easing, a flash of euphoria today lifted many stock markets around the world to new highs...

Correction Imminent - UPDATE

TWO PATHS DIVERGED IN A YELLOW WOOD...

Following a stellar September, I believe the stars are now lining up powerfully to halt the progress markets have made since Ben 'The Beard' Bernanke placed his quivering finger over that nuclear button marked 'QE2'...

STOCKS, PRECIOUS METALS, COMMODITIES: Correction imminent

7pm TUESDAY 12TH OCTOBER 2010

A sharp pullback in virtually all risk assets - in which category I now have to include the 'safe-havens' of gold and silver - is close at hand.  

UK PROPERTY: Prices post record drop as bull trap snaps shut

A BULL TRAP IN HOUSING (AND STOCKS) WAS SET IN THE REBOUND OF 2009 - ANYBODY BUYING SINCE ON A PRESUMPTION THAT THE WORST IS OVER IS LIKELY IN FOR A SHOCK

In my original Financial Report sent out way back in January 2009, I included a chart illustrating the classic timeline of an investment mania.  Here it is again, unaltered.  It applies to share prices, it applies to house prices.  It applies to tulips.  




After months of gradually accelerating price falls and a shocker out today, it seems increasingly clear that our 'dead-cat bounce' in housing is well and truly deceased.  The illusion of a return to normality persisted for a year and saw prices, in London especially, rebound quite strongly.  But it does appear that this was indeed a classic 'bull trap' and that the next extended phase of the decline has now begun.

Part II - WHAT LIES BENEATH

Manipulative, calculating and infuriatingly effective, Robert Zemeckis' Hitchcockian chiller stars Michelle Pfeiffer as a car crash victim suffering from amnesia and a 'perfect' marriage. Having moved with her scientific-genius husband into a beautiful New England retreat (Harrison Ford in one of his last ever topless appearances), she soon discovers that her new house is haunted, her neighbour is a violent wife-beater and her husband may be a liar, an adulterer and possibly, even, a killer.

Natural and supernatural clues soon lead her to seek answers at the bottom of a nearby lake.  

What lies beneath~~~?  

GOLD: The ultimate bubble

Soros has, over the lifetime of his fund, made more money for his clients
than British Airways or Apple have earned in their entire history.

George Soros, according to a recent study the world's most profitable hedge fund manager, opined on various investment topics during a recent symposium.  Asked his opinion on gold, he repeated his view that it was in a huge bubble and was not a 'safe' investment...

BALL OF CONFUSION (Part 1)

Round and around and around we go

Where the world's headed nobody knows

(Fans, marvel at the a capella vocals here)

Vietnam, 

segregation, 

social degradation, 

inner-city decay, 

drugs, 

police brutality, 

political corruption... 

Considering the catalogue of injustice The Temptations had to sing about when this classic was released in 1970, the use of an iconic protest song to illustrate the economic problems in our altogether more bountiful age might seem a little flip.  



But if that year represented a turning point between the youth-inspired creativity, hope and idealism of the 1960s and the late-century age of cynicism, materialism and greed which ultimately followed, I'm wondering if a different kind of tipping point may have been reached right here, in the dog-days of 2010.

Long Term Investment Strategy - a critical update

In August's On the Money post I outlined in broad terms a strategy which, if a century of data can be trusted, should allow anyone serious about their pension or investments to build up a very handsome return over time.

STOCKS: Hindenburg's catalogue of carnage

I thought it would be worthwhile looking back at the history of this much-mocked stock market indicator, since we now have at least two sightings of the Hindenburg Omen (and possibly three, depending on your definition of the rules) in the past two weeks, as well as several near-misses over the past few months.




For anyone who missed the recent media feeding frenzy and who has not yet caught my previous post, the Omen is a peculiar set of conditions which when found together seem to indicate a market on the verge of a nervous breakdown...  

GOLD: Two-faced Goldman signals inflection point

Goldman caught red-highlighted...page 1

A few months ago, Goldman Sachs found itself in the headlines and subject to a major government investigation for the crime of, not to put it too politely, screwing its own clients.





It was found, during the dying days of the mortgage boom in 2007, to have encouraged a number of buyers of its mortgage-backed securities to invest in a bond which it knew another of its clients had constructed and designed specifically to crash and burn...

UK PROPERTY: Selling stampede signals market top

The gradual tiptoeing of sellers into the market which started a few months ago has become a stampede.




Sensing the turning of the tide, homeowners who had held out for a return to the fantasy values of 2007 are now deciding to cash in their chips as the economy begins to wobble...

STOCKS: Hindenburg Omen confirms dire outlook - crash possible

Last Thursday, a little understood but much commented-upon technical signal known as the Hindenburg Omen appeared, hovering gloomily over market sentiment.  This rare sighting - it has popped up a couple of dozen times in the last quarter century - had financial news reporters all over the world quite agog.   Why?  Its record of alerting investors to major declines and market crashes is frighteningly good...

STOCKS: The market breakdown has begun

No sooner did I submit my previous post than stocks jumped off a cliff and began a graceful swan dive. The S&P500 lost 2.8%, the FTSE100 2.4%...

STOCKS: The rally is almost done

The disconcertingly clear-sighted and belligerent Robin Griffiths, Cazenove Capital's star technical strategist, believes the rally from July has peaked - and with it, the great market rebound which started a year and a half ago.  




Here he makes his bearish call - and takes down a bullish fellow panellist with the relish of a country gentleman murdering a shot of Remy Martin after a particularly good hunt...

UK & EUROPEAN PROPERTY - Don't blame the Yanks, we all did it

Excellent piece by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard today on the global scope of the rise in house prices...

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

T H E    Q U I C K    A N D    T H E    D E A D

______o0o______


I N   T H I S   T O W N ,  
Y O U ' R E   E I T H E R   O N E   
O R   T H E   O T H E R

When it comes to investment decisions, are you Gene Hackman or Leonardo di Caprio? Are you a swashbuckling risk-taker, or a cautious, hard-bitten wallet-warrior?  Are you quick - or are you dead?