This post is compelling: DOOOOOOOOOM!
As part of a series of 'in-day' management email updates yesterday, I used his post as a talking point about sentiment in the precious metals mining stocks. In other words, to wait for a final capitulation pukage with gold bugs jumping out of windows or maybe this time, are they simply simmering to death like frogs in a pot?
If the commentary in his post is for real - it's taken from what I think is a gold bug website (Korelin? Is that a gold bug thing?) - then these people have been driven half insane with the water torture that is being a gold bug (esp. gold stock bug) today.
I am simply appalled reading this. Can the gold 'community's' ethos be so hard core that these people actually take everything the salesmen say from on high as gospel and await the coming glory in a 'set it and forget it' fashion?
This whole thing, from Bernanke to inflation to gold manipulation to derivatives meltdowns, etc. is a cartoon, or fairy tale or (yes, wait for it...) Wonderland. Or at least it should be viewed that way by a sober trader. Yesterday I wrote that the term 'gold community' is "a terrible term that sets its members up as foot soldiers in a bloody battle" and the comments in the post linked above confirm this.
Apparently Brent Cook's notion* that 'everybody lost money in mining stocks last year' is near true. I did not. I broke even last year and am an underwhelming +2.5% this year. I certainly do not tout such flat performance, but that is not the focus. What is the focus is what is ahead and surviving intact long enough to capitalize.
The past is the past, but what is upcoming is what is important. If you are an all-in frog simmering in a pot, you are screwed. If you are a cashed up player who realizes that perma-bullish sermons issued by the high priests at the alter of Saint Gaudens are more dangerous than anything that our Dear (monetary) Leader(s) can inflict, you are in position to be strong and you are in position to capitalize on the market's terms, not those of your own ego.
There are no quick fixes, easy answers or readily understandable directions. There is only the market and there is only you.
* Not portraying Mr. Cook as part of the problem mind you; his sober views on mining are quite the contrary.
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Al Korelin is a goldbug, at least from the standpoint of economic theory, politics, investing style and so on.
ReplyDeleteBut he's no raving loon, conspiracy theorist, apocalyptic survivalist or mean-spirited type. Maybe he's closest to Jay Taylor. With Grandich's politics and religion, except he tries to be nice instead of a douchebag.
Frankly I find Roger Wiegand's commodity market commentary over there slightly useful sometimes, and will even listen to Grandich (!!!) on the weekend interviews. I think Mickey Fulp gets interviewed there once in a while.
As for the complainers - yes, some people are crazy enough to buy a moose pasture with both fists on a reccie from some anonymous voice on the internet. Really. They truly exist. You should go hang out on Agoracom or Stockhouse.
No, I should not hang out in any of these places. I should remain hermetically sealed in my own head looking at what I see, not what I am told. There is way too much bullshit out there flying around. Way too much.
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