Friday, December 11, 2009

Market Operations

I have the day off and it is frigid up here which will likely keep me indoors for the day. I have plenty of house keeping items to attend so I will have plenty to do.

Market Operations
First point of business this morning was to check over my market positions and make a plan.

As I have been writing about recently, something feels very wrong to me right now and everything I am looking at makes no sense. In that light I closed out the following positions (all winners) this morning:
GLD
SLV
HRL
CPB
PAAS
I still hold a very small position in OMEX, but that company has been a huge disappointment. Still, as a lotto long I love any company that looks for sunken treasure!

I am now 98% in cash for my trading account. I still hold a position in gold and silver that remains a core holding and is not likely to ever be sold, and I do not count that in my trading account.

So why now? As I said, something feels wrong. I am also looking at some new ideas to trade, but I will need some more data points before I lay them out on the blog.

More Later.

3 comments:

watchtower said...

Anon said:

"Think hard assets & precious metals."

You might want to think 'soft' assets too i.e. toilet paper, because I know someone who has just about cornered the market on that item.
Get it while you still can, we are all just one or two royalty checks away from being priced out forever!
Pray that Halo 3 sales fall flat this Christmas season or we will all be wiping with corncobs.


Just kidding Anon : ) I enjoyed reading your comment and wish you would post more often.

EconomicDisconnect said...

Watchtower,
NICE.

GawainsGhost said...

This was a smart move on your part, GYC. And you're right, something feels very wrong and nothing makes any sense. I'll tell you exactly what it is, corruption and incompetence.

Fraud is rampant. I keep seeing and hearing all these ads on television, radio and the web about how to buy precious metals, particularly gold. But I'm a hard sell.

Without phsycical delivery of the actual substance after transfer of funds, how do I know what I'm really buying? I don't.

Not to mention that all this talk seems feverish to me. Suddenly all these people want to buy and sell gold? Why? Because it's trendy now? Looks like a perfect opportunity for fraudsters and scam artists. The greater fool theory of investing.

I saw an interview with Jim Rogers the other day. He said he owned some gold but wasn't buying any now. He's not selling any either, so you're wise to maintain your core holding. The reason why he's not buying is because the price went up too much too quickly, and he always avoids situations like that. I don't know if gold's a bubble or not, but what goes up must come down. So you were smart to get out while the getting was good.

You know, in late 2007 we got an assignment on this repossessed home. The homeowner sued for wrongful foreclosure, and now two years later he's been evicted from his house. So they sent us these documents.

I was looking at them and something didn't seem right about the legal description. So I went by the metes and bounds, got a piece of paper and drew a map with a pen and ruler. Is this house on the expressway? Oh, no, it's on this other lot. Not according to this map it's not.

So we had to call a surveyor. He came in yesterday and said, "This property is an insurance company on the expressway." They foreclosed on the wrong house! They threw this poor guy out on the street and took his home for nothing.

I want you to think about that. Two years of litigation. There were brokers, appraisers, title company attorneys involved in the original sale. And they all got the lot number wrong? There were attorneys involved in the foreclosure, litigation and eviction. And none of them thought to look at the metes and bounds?

I made a crude map on a piece of paper by hand. And totally exposed these people as the complete idiots they are. Think of all the time and money and hardship that's been wasted in this mess. If I were this guy, I'd be suing everyone involved for a whole hell of a lot of money.

Corruption and incompetence is everywhere. If you don't know what you're doing, don't get involved. Cover your shorts and get the hell out.