Credit Crunch – The New Diet Snack for Financial Markets (A MUST READ)

Prudent Bear ^ | September 5, 2007 | Satyajit Das

[Hydroshock]

Credit/Mortage/Housing ping

If you want on or off this ping list, freemail me.

[dennisw]

Please freepmail some you like. I have a not too bright friend who bought (few hundred thou) lots of Homestake and Placer 17 years ago. Never sold any. He’s a Democrat

[GodGunsGuts]

First things first. I’m not trying to dissuade you, but the following will give you a good idea of the research involved if your going to get the most bang for your buck.

http://www.zealllc.com/2007/goldmine.htm

[GodGunsGuts]

PS I personally don't buy individual gold stocks. I invest in gold funds because I don't want to spend an inordinate amount of time on research. The best gold fund and precious minerals fund that I know of is www.usfunds.com. Here's their charts from the beginning of the current gold bull.

[GodGunsGuts]

Sorry, left out that they are charts showing the appreciation of an initial $10,000 investment.

[grey_whiskers]

Yep.

Whenever the multinationals want Congress to change the playing field, it isn't because they have the individual's best interests at hear.

Cheers!

[jwh_Denver]

In your Zeal article post he writes that mines will save their best ore grades for leaner times. I’ve read where in times with the prospect of much higher gold prices mines will save their best ores for much greater profit at higher POG.

My wife works for Oppenheimerfunds so I didn’t have a choice for a gold mutual fund since their 401k’s only have available their own mutual funds for purchase. Their gold fund, OPGSX, has done very well. We don’t have pay an upfront 5.7% sales fee. Here’s a performance chart for USERX, BGEIX, and OPGSX. Just for your information.

http://stockcharts.com/charts/performance/perf.html?userx,bgeix,opgsx

I figure if you know Zeal you also know Jim Sinclair. The best to you and your investing. Things sure are looking good now for gold.

[Pelham]

bump

[Pelham]

“Lord knows I’m no financial genius. But that triangle looks very, very scary.”

The biggest worry is the derivatives, which are unregulated and mostly untested by a serious downturn.

[GodGunsGuts]

Yes, I have been reading Jim Sinclair for years. Not sure why your fund has pulled ahead of US Funds in the short term. But I did notice that the Oppenheimer fund is a mixture of gold and precious minerals (USERX and UNWPX). US Funds separates them out into two funds. However both outperform Oppenheimer in the longer term. Like you, one of my employer provided retirement funds only allowed me to choose a limited number of gold funds, all of which left something to be desired compared to my top picks. So I have had to set aside additional funds to invest in my preferred funds. But, as Jim Sinclair would say, we should all clean up handsomely as long as we stay disciplined. As I am sure you well know, this gold bull still has a long, long way to go. All the best to you and yours--GGG

[GodGunsGuts]

Das keeps getting better and better. What he should do now is write a book on how to extricate oneself from derivative risks!

[GodGunsGuts]

Sorry about that. Stock symbols in parenthesis belonged in the next sentence. Ooops!

[kcar]

No reason to be sorry it’s a good article. My post should have said “Bump to re-read later with a full pot of coffee”.

[jwh_Denver]

Thanks GGG. My money is on gold until I think it’s played out, a long time from now, 10 to 15 years?

I took another look at the performance charts from stockcharts and yahoo and all 3, including yours, show different performances. I discount yahoo tremendously.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=my&s=OPGSX&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=userx

6 months ago I was eyeballing USERX and wishing I had a crack at getting into that fund. OPGSX has very little precious minerals in it but then again they are very opaque on what they have in their funds. All the top 10 holdings are gold stocks. I do like the idea of a gold only fund.

Waiting on a dip.

[dennisw]

Yep is right Whiskers look out for yours so you don’t all get whisked away. And I’ll do so for mine!

[dennisw]

Check out VGPMX. A pain to get into but has very good in and out and very good track record. In fact it is not closed even though it says so. Open to Flagship members. Freepmail if you need more

[dennisw]

Yeah Jim Sinclair. First came across him in 1980. He used to be on Wall St Week/Louis Rukeyser

Remember those primitive days? James Sinclair was a real gold bug. He was a vegetarian. When gold started eating sh!t about 1986 he went a bit nuts and ate his first steak in years. No lie!

[dennisw]

We don’t have pay an upfront 5.7% sales fee
____________
I would and I looked at them. With no fee it’s very very solid from what I’ve looked at

[berdie]

later

[dennisw]

YTD on these are terrible. In negative territory