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To: Leaning Right
Gold mining stocks are subject to risks and influences other than simple metal prices and supply and demand for it. Competition, interest rates, technical considerations, currency values, politics, manipulations by nation-states and large investors, and other factors all play a role and are too difficult to model and hedge for any but the best informed and well-heeled investors.

Emotional influences -- especially your emotions -- can also affect market prices and investment strategies and decisions. For many investors, gold's emotional appeal and belief in its enduring value make for disabling effects. They lose sight of market fundamentals and basic investor maxims about cutting losses, making quick decisions, and hedging risks. They fail to take profits when they can and tend to let fear and greed get the upper hand.

I once knew a wealthy Canadian, a retired businessman worth near a hundred million dollars who started speculating in the gold market in the late 1970s on the reasoning that the dollar was doomed to continuing decline. For a time, he did remarkably well, but then lost almost everything when the market turned against him as Reagan's economic policies took hold and the dollar rose in value. Oddly, the Canadian was a stalwart conservative who greatly admired Reagan and agreed with his policies even as he failed to reckon with the effects of their success on his speculative position in the gold market.

The bottom line: the gold markets, including that for gold mining stocks, are especially opaque and tricky for investors. I would avoid gold and gold mining stocks, and if I did get in, I would not put more at risk than I was willing to lose. Above all, I would not fall in love with gold or become a believer if I became an investor in it or in gold mining stocks.

6 posted on 07/01/2015 5:14:09 PM PDT by Rockingham
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To: Rockingham
IMHO gold and silver are insurance policies against crisis, not investments....the time to buy them is when they are cheap.... and like insurance policies...hope u don't have to redeem them....over time they appreciate and unlike regular investments have little chance of going to -0-

(I prefer silver because it has actual valuable uses besides jewelery and from my research there is less available ounces of silver then gold because of it)...Do your own DD

8 posted on 07/01/2015 5:46:16 PM PDT by M-cubed ( Their hope is to find a way to pick a nominee who, if elected, would actually stay the course the w)
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