My summary of our investing future from an Armstrong perspective. There is some relevance to discussions we've had upthread.
Again, for the millionth time, you completely ignore black swan events and act like everyone can trade this market in an orderly walk to the exits. Things like currency revaluations are black swan events themselves and happen overnight. They're impossible to trade unless you're a government insider like George Soros. The synopsis of your game plan is basically - don't buy anything, hold only USD cash, then you can get your 20% deflationary discount at some point (which might not even happen), except if you time it wrong, you not only get no discount, you also lose everything.
What you're saying is not something any sane investor would do. A real investor would invest for the endgame (things like metals, bitcoin, etc) and start buying now, then dollar cost average if any opportunity arises. You're advocating a complete no hedge gamble. When probably 95% of people reading this aren't good traders, and of the remaining 5%, most of those wouldn't even get the trade right, you have to notice that this is not actually valid investing advice.
This is why things like Bitcoin and metals have defied your expectations, like when you said Bitcoin wouldn't go up at $450. You did not take into account that big money can't afford to stay out of the market while gambling on the most opportune time to enter. They have the most to lose and have to be hedged.
Good luck getting some huge discount on things like metals and Bitcoin (we already know the Bitcoin chart is similar to this one) while attempting to time a rush to the exits with current charts that look like this:
r0ach, neither Bitcoin nor gold have defied my expectations. Why do you speak dishonestly about me?
First of all, I was buying gold and silver back in 2005, and then I was attempting to sell at the top at $21. Unfortunately, because I was traveling between the USA and the Philippines in late 2006, I had Jason Hommel hold my metals and he refused to sell my silver for me when I asked him to at $21. I had to have him ship my metals to First State Depository in Delaware, and then I was finally able to sell at $13. On top of that, a 1000oz bar which I had ordered from Tulving before the $21 peak, had arrived with the serial number chiselled off, so then I was unable to sell it and he wouldn't honor the price at the moment and instead forced me to return the bar for a replacement which took something like a month to complete. That was one an example of why physical metals are absolutely illiquid and unsuitable for trading.
So I was buying Comex 1000oz bars below $9 and minting rounds and selling them, many of them to rpietila in Finland. I had amassed 18,000oz of silver.
Then when silver hit $20s in Oct. 2010, I made my famous prediction that precisely predicted the timing and price that silver would rise to $45 and then fall back again to $26:
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article23786.htmlAgain the problem was I had shipped my physical metals to the Philippines at the only repository available which was run by European who was a former manager of Metanor's refining operation. He had a small refinery in Manila for gold coming in from the small mines in Luzon.
He ended up extracting about $50,000 out of my holdings through a series of slopping accounting, delays in providing account statements, delays on making requested trades, etc.. I was unable to hold my metals personally in Mindanao, because I didn't have the proper security here.
So he also made it impossible for me to sell at $48 even though several others in the Hommel forum sold precisely at that price based on my prediction and telling to sell at that time. I was finally able to sell some of my silver at $36, and then eventually the remaining in the high $20s. Armstrong's prediction for a long decline from 2011 forward (which I became aware of only in 2012), also aided my resolve to liquidate (in addition to realizing my savings was being stolen from me due to problem of who could store my metals).
In 2012 and then again Jan 2013, I was discussing Bitcoin with rpietila. In 2011, I was preoccupied on the start of my health problem, family problems (my kids were still with me at that time), living location problems, and also I was trying to code up a dating site and try to get some income rolling in because I hadn't had any income from my s/w work since roughly 2006 when my coolpage.com sales had finally tapered off to near 0. In May 2012 was when I was suddenly in ER with a bursted severe (life threatening) acute peptic ulcer, my ex showed up unannounced when I was so ill and yanked my kids, and the combination had done something to my state-of-mind (my adrenal glands were on overdrive and I was constantly under the feeling of "fight or flight" with my cortisol constantly elevated) that I had followed Graham Summers into a short bet on the Chinese markets and I tripled down on the bet ended up losing $75,000 in July/August. It was after this, that I started to follow Armstrong much more closely and realized if I had followed him I wouldn't have lost that $75,000.
In Jan 2013, rpietila and I discussed Bitcoin when it was around $10 or so, and I told him it was poised to go much higher and I approved of his decision to go all in. He sold $100,000 of silver and bought 10,000 BTC. He went from being less wealthy than me, to being a multi-millionaire. I told him that I really wanted to follow him into BTC, but that I had depleted all of my speculative investment capital (various reasons including the ones mentioned above plus for example my ex extracting $2000+ monthly from me during that 2012 - 2014 period once she had the kids back in the USA and also the expenses of my health debacle). I had just enough capital to support my cash flow requirements through 2014 and I had hoped I could code up something by that time. Unfortunately, the illness became chronic and I basically fell off the cliff into the abyss of non-production and my remaining savings dwindled away until I reached the point where I am now entirely bankrupt and my remaining cash flow (provided by an investor) is dwindling away as well.
As Bitcoin moved past $1000, my relationship with rpietila had soured because he became something like a King pronouncing that Monero was the only altcoin worth investing in and as well he was basically telling investors to buy BTC in the $600 - $700 level. I became negative on both of those investments and I was correct, with BTC falling to my predicted target of $150 and Monero also collapsing after rpietila's initial pump.
I also called many of BTC meandering moves interim, and for example one very public one was when I said in May 2015, that BTC would rise to $320 in the summer and fall back down again. Some people in this forum can vouch for that as they successfully shorted at $320. I was thinking about shorting, because I was talked out of by someone who told me I couldn't trust bitfinex.
I even called the moved in Ethereum correctly since February when it began its move up.
My one error in BTC was I expected both gold and BTC to make their final lows in Q1 2016, and wasn't looking at the long-term BTC chart since mid last year and observing the long U bottom that had formed. I did notice that recently when a friend asked me if there was any chance BTC could move to $1200 on this current move up, and I told him yes it was possible because a U bottom pattern had potentially formed since I had last looked at it carefully.
On the future we face now,
while you were holding BTC all the way down from $1200 to $150 in your basement with your hunting rifle locked and loaded, others have been making enormous gains trading altcoins and other investments. You tinfoil hats are so easy to humiliate, and I picture in my mind Elmer Fudd.
Black swans are going to drive the international capital into the US dollar which is still by orders-of-magnitude the more liquid reserve currency. If you deny this reality, then I will label you a tinfoil hat who is hunkered down in his basement.
No I am not advocating holding USD only. Right now, if I had speculative capital I would be holding BTC and US stocks. If BTC hits $1200 this year, I would sell at least half and if US stocks are still low, buy them. I would not be buying speculative gold now, although of course any physical I wanted for long-term holding I would have long since bought at $1050 which had since 2012 at least been Armstrong's target for the first low reversal. For further gold buys, I would be waiting for gold to make its final low at $850 after the stampede into the US dollar and US stocks has run its course.
I would also be keeping my eye out for an altcoin that can make another run like Ethereum did. I would be looking for
the right combination of features and pricing. Unfortunately I have no speculative capital to invest at this time.
For cash, I would (and do) hold USD.
If gold and Bitcoin make their corrections after this current runup, then I would look to increasing holdings, but again I would also be holding some US stocks and also making altcoin investments if they have the right attributes and timing.
As for gold mining investments, there is no way I would touch them again. Even in the 1930s, most of them failed. We only hear about the ones that did exceptionally well.
And we not going to see extremely high gold prices while the USD and US stocks still remain viable. Period. So farting around with gold mining stocks is a good way to lose your money as I did. I already made the mistake of investing in them in 2006 and 2007. I understand altcoins much better than I can possibly understand the corruption of these exploration and junior gold mining facades. Doug Casey and Rick Rule can lick my butthole.
Let me add this saga of the collapsing global economy and a monetary reset is going to transpire over many years. During this time, I don't want to be hunkered down in my basement with my stacks of End of the World hodlrings. The future is about being productive and generating or investing in new developments. So much opportunity for growth over here in Asia. So much work that needs to be done on block chain technology in altcoins. Etc.. Your single-minded basement End of the World blackswan paranoia is contrary to the way great wealth is generated and sustained.
