There's a fundamental rule about investing - you've probably heard it before: Be brave when others are fearful, and fearful when others are brave.
Bill Bonner, editor of Daily Reckoning, opened the Eighth Annual Agora Financial Investment Symposium by suggesting that most people are braver than they've ever been. And that means the rest of us should be very, very afraid.
He's right, of course. Hedge funds are taking in more money than ever...despite the questionable nature of their holdings. Twenty thousand new condos are under construction in Miami...despite the current crisis in the housing sector and the ticking bomb that is subprime lending. The Dow is hitting new highs...with some mainstream commentators calling it the greatest economic boom ever.
Indeed, Bonner agrees it is "great." But more like how the "Great War" and the "Great Depression" were great.
It begs the question - what should you do when you're fearful?
"Nothing," Bonner explains. But that's hard when you have money.
So what exactly constitutes nothing?
If you're a regular reader of these pages, Bonner's answer won't surprise you a bit: Buy gold.
Doug Casey...the Mogambo Guru...and a number of speakers have agreed. Although gold is already up to a 27-year high, it still seems cheap compared with the state of the economy - and the risks the market is facing - right now.
Doug Casey ran through a list of other asset classes and gave his reasons for not wanting his money in them, and he came to this conclusion:
"Where should your money be? GOLD! That's it. Honestly. I've looked at everything and anything - I'll buy anything if the price is right. Gold isn't just going through the roof - it's going through the moon. Mark my words, the gold bull market hasn't even really started...."
And of course, the Mogambo Guru had his own unique way of making a gold recommendation:
"Run out and load up on gold...and in the future when gold prices are astronomical and there's chaos all around you...you'll look around you and notice that you're rich and everyone else is poor and you'll say, wow, that Mogambo dude was right. It's a shame he was such a hateful, detestable little man. And you'll be right...but you'll be rich! So who cares..."
Of course...the "buy gold" line of thinking was not \unanimous. Some of the experts and analysts at the Symposium offered worthwhile alternatives to simply buying gold. Natural resource expert Rick Rule was one of them.
Rule believes that you must be brave if you're going to invest in natural resources. Not crazy, mind you. But brave. Meaning you have to be a discriminate investor. You must buy when others are selling, sell when others are buying. This tactic, Rule admits, "is psychologically hard, but functionally easy. And it's the only way to make money consistently in the volatile resource markets."
Byron King, editor of Outstanding Investments, examined investment opportunities among oil and gas stocks. Because the world is no longer awash in oil, King declared, the energy sector – both traditional and alternative – will be awash in great opportunities.
The "cheap oil" days are over, he warned, which means the energy-dependent American lifestyle will become costlier to maintain...maybe much costlier. "We've invented the cheap-energy system that has given us prosperity and freedom," King explained, "now we begin the descent. We'll either have to invent our way out of it, or go back to the way it was before."
He was talking, of course, about our petroleum-based economy... in the face of Peak Oil. Once mocked, denied and ridiculed, the realities of Hubbert's theory are now coming to pass as, one by one, the world's oil fields pass their peak production rates and ease into decline.
If people like Byron King and Bill Bonner are right, the shock of recognition is going to come. But the flip side of this looming societal trauma, says King, is that all kinds of energy companies will make all kinds of money.
Our resident Maniac Trader, Kevin Kerr, also banged the natural resource drum - but to a slightly different beat: Food.
More specifically - how in the world is China going to feed all those people? Even with its one-child policy in place, the population of China is expected to go from 1.3 billion today to 1.49 billion by 2025. But only 11% of China's land is arable farmland. Compare that with 26% in the U.S. to feed a smaller population and you can start to see for yourself: China is in desperate need of a solution.
Plus, it is struggling with other issues. Combine factors such as soil erosion, inadequate water supply, lack of qualified labor for farming, lack of modern farming equipment and methods and extreme weather patterns, and you've got a darn good crisis in the making. But crisis spells opportunity.
A lot of bad things might happen in the world. Some we can foresee, while others will be like the proverbial Black Swan - completely unanticipated. But if you pay attention...and play your hand right...the bad things
shouldn't happen to you.
Doug Casey said it best...
"Internationalize yourself. Keep your citizenship in one country, your bank account in another and live in another...treat the world as your oyster."
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