Selling 1 GROY and 2 Copper (COPX, UYM)
Cathie, Cramer, and other good reasons for Gen-Z’s historic pessimism
At cycle’s end, stats will show over 80% of investors managed to lose money since 2020’s low despite the huge market run in the interim. Lots of money.
5-10% will break even. If you’ve less than 10 years of success in markets, it’s virtually certain you won’t be in the profitable few percent.
If you’re already in the red at this late stage of a historic mania, really high odds your accounts will be obliterated by the bottom.
That’s what’s happened in the past and will happen again, and again and again.
I’m reducing long positions in order to have capital to deploy when there’s “blood in the streets”, and to ensure it won’t be my blood.
We don't need to trust a single word they say
You are creating all the bubbles at play- Biffy Clyro, perhaps singing about central banks
Worth the quick read:
The Amazing Trajectory of the Federal Debt vs Population Growth
Same source, similarly short and also worth a look:
How Much Do Food Stamps, Social Security, and Medicare Support the Economy?
With every recession, transfer receipts as a percentage of real personal income rises.
The three massive rounds of fiscal stimulus is unprecedented. A friend asked me today why the Fed could not see this coming.
I explained: These guys are not wizards; they have never called a recession in real time. Bernanke denied there was a recession even after it started. He denied there was a housing bubble. They all believe in models that don’t work. And history suggests they always err on the side of being too loose. They will make the same mistakes over and over.
The Fed never saw the uptick in inflation because their models said otherwise. Their models now say inflation will return to normal…
Is it all about vote buying, dependency and maybe even enslavement?
It’s certainly not about caring or responsible stewardship of taxpayer funds…
“A Pork Fest Of Epic Proportions”: Congress Passes Spending Package To Avert Shutdown
CRA fires 232 staff for falsely claiming $2,000-a-month CERB benefits
CRA is Canada’s tax agency. Thieves at the Ministry of Theft?
No surprise, however it is shocking that any of them were even reprimanded much less fired. “232” just counting those who were caught, disclosed AND fired, only at one government agency, with no jail time or restitution. Probably they were ”fired” / promoted.
The full extent of the fraud re: government payouts is far, far beyond even the most cynical imagination. But what seems like mere waste to rational people is really epic opportunity for grift and influence peddling for those in power…
Governments across the US are handing residents cash - no strings attached
NYC launches controversial program giving migrants prepaid debit cards
Government Funded Study Claims Shakespeare Made Theater "Too White, Male, And Cisgender"
The Senate Calls Out-Of-Control Spending A National Security Threat, Keeps Spending Anyway
Some people understand:
Costco Selling Up To $200 Million In Gold Bars Per Month, Wells Fargo Estimates
Gold’s Strongest Move In a Year Was When the Dollar Was Rising
GODL! Precious Metal Soars Above $2,400 After Sudden Gap Higher
Gold headlines like these seemed unthinkable when I was a somewhat lonely but very strident gold bull at inception of this blog last year.
Here’s an excerpt from January 2023:
The chart below shows gold vs. the world’s reserve currency, the “mighty dollar”. If you want to see something really eye-popping, check gold vs. weaker currencies.
A million dollar reserve note is right there in my hand
And I can't stand to think it's all that I've got
Take away all my silver
Take away all my gold
And hand me a stack of paper?
Paper money don't hold49 years ago Sammy Hagar sang hits about the Federal Reserve note “dollar” scam.
Paper money… don’t hold. Too true, Red Rocker!
10 years later rappers were all about gold chains, back before there were chainz.
That was a peak, of course. Same as the euro peaked when it was trendy to flaunt euros instead of gold or dollars in rap videos. Smart money was doing the opposite - buying gold at the cyclical bottom, and that is legit gangsta. All day.
In 2011 there was another major peak in precious metals.
And now - 4 months ago actually - like clockwork the stars and the circus we call “government” have aligned yet again at what should prove to be a cyclical bottom.
Gold ETFs globally capped 8 successive months of outflows at the end of December for total net outflows of $3 billion last year. Not exactly stats commensurate with peak mania. Rather, we’ll seldom see more bullish news than that for precious metals.
Or maybe we will…
Congress has raised the U.S. debt ceiling nearly 90 times since 1940, including an average of every single year since 2000.
That’s a well-established trend gaining momentum, and by total coincidence gold’s price in dollars shows the same trend gaining momentum.
What’s to be learned? Fiscally it doesn’t matter who you vote for, it only matters that you know the difference between the empire’s Official ClownCoin and real money.
And do something about it.
At least 1/3 of my posts in the 15 months since have been super bullish on gold, silver, and commodities.
Few cared to hear about it then, but now virtually everyone is singing the same song so it’s time to realize more gains.
Don’t be complacent. It’ll take money to make more money when the next buy signal appears.
Recently we booked a 5-week 35% gain in silver:
In that post I stated that “I expect gold to consolidate or even retrace around $2350.”
As I type, gold just hit $2400
Five-and-a-half months ago I added a 2nd GROY position to One And Done idea #4 - Gold:
That 2nd GROY is up 49% since, and I’ll sell it on any tick below $2.00
It closed today at $2.03
Two other GROY positions were sold in December for gains of 10% each after just one month’s holding time.
After this next sale there’ll be 1 GROY and 2 GLCC positions (each paying an 11.6% yield) left in the gold basket for my idea #4.
Should gold continue to $2500, I’ll be booking one of the GLCC positions.
I’m also selling 2 of the 3 positions in One And Done idea #11 - Copper & Basic Materials:
In the 2.5 months since that post CPER is up 12.5%, COPX up 34%, and UYM up 21% (including dividends, and was up 27% at its high last week).
Copper itself is up nearly 15% in that time. We’re often force-fed the preposterous old canard that “markets are forward looking” yet these big moves always seem to surprise.
Not wishing a similar surprise in the opposite direction, and after such big quick run-ups in this high-risk market environment, I prefer the composition of CPER to represent my copper holdings so am selling COPX and UYM.
I remain very bullish on copper in the longer run, while taking advantage of this blind luck while I can.
After all, everyone knows you can’t time the market. Just ask the experts.
In the October post linked above I took some shots at the Clown Queen of finance, Cathie Wood.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer, whose ridiculous antics and horrible record I also enjoy mocking, couldn’t stop slobbering his typically unhinged hyperbolic BS about Wood’s “genius” investing at the exact peak of 2021’s speculative fervor, when millions of novice day-flailers fawned over the transparently clueless Cathie.
I was very emphatic back then, and since starting this substack early 2023, that she’s every bit the dingbat she appears to anyone with a bit of instinct and sense, predicting ARKK would eventually trade below $20. It was over $150 at the time.
Today the “genius” money manager’s fund is down 70% since its 2021 peak - down 81% at its $29 low in 2022 - and I’m completely certain it’ll eventually drop another 70% at least.
Meanwhile, Wood was the #1 wealth-destroying money mis-manager of the past decade. 2nd place isn’t even close:
It’ll be surprising if ARKK still exists by this cycle’s nadir.
Keep in mind her vulgar display of ineptitude and failure came despite a historic bull market during which she was early in virtually all of the hottest sectors and “meme stonks” of the 2020’s so far.
Most of those - her favorite, Tesla, very much included - enjoyed parabolic runs of hundreds, even thousands of percent - in no small part because of irresponsible financial media allowing her a platform to constantly pump the hypervalued trash she was pouring client money into.
One of her mentors was also a shameless celebrity huckster, Bill Hwang of the famously failed firm Archegos Capital, who was indicted on federal charges of fraud and racketeering in 2022. Hwang provided seed capital at ARKK’s inception.
No aspersions intended at all. Just noting the tragically comedic pattern at play of top incinerators of client cash flocking together.
The moral? They should’ve sold when they were way, way, way ahead and retail momentum chasers in a greed frenzy were climbing over each other to buy into the same holdings after massive short-term run-ups.
To be fair to Wood, she was very early in Nvidia. So too Cramer, who named his dog Nvidia in 2017.
Speaking of momentum chasers in a greed frenzy, here’s a 10-year Nvidia chart which will soon see a very visible major draw-down to at least $600 I expect:
Almost half of white-collar workers would quit if asked to work in the office more, poll says
Another sign of a top.
Is that the same half that’s got little if any savings, or is it the significant percentage deep in debt and on verge of insolvency?
Credit card delinquency worst on record
Ford to delay all-electric SUV, truck to focus on offering hybrid vehicles across its lineup by 2030
Volkswagen EV Sales Plunge 24 Percent in the First Quarter
Ford Lightning Price Cut "Sends Shockwaves Through EV Market"
EVs are twice as hard to sell today
Remember all these headlines about the wild promises of EVs colliding with hard reality when AI turns out to be a similar disappointment.
Seems cynical? People already drowning in debt won’t like paying 10x utility rates so “degens” can flip crypto meme coins while spy drones deliver useless debt-fuelled purchases cleverly marketed to them in their weakest moments by giant energy-sucking “AI” data centers mining and processing their every movement, message and click.
AI, Cryptocurrency Will Double Data Center Energy Consumption by 2026
No worries for those in a “preventative detention” gulag for thought crimes though.
PigAI may even be powerful enough to suss out felony misuse of pronouns before you can even think of “micro-aggressing”.
Now that is cynical. But probably proven true soon enough.
On the bright side the keen eye and warm embrace of Big Bro keeps us safe, comrades! Safe from problems Big Bro created herself while consolidating power and profiting immeasurably, but who actually cares?
Americans Now Worry About Out-Of-Control Power Bill Inflation
Fury as home insurance companies cancel coverage after secretly taking pictures of owners' properties using drones
Cameras placed all over are recording license plates. Who's watching and should we be worried?
Wendy's is delivering food by drone for the first time
Automakers Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies
Renting now cheaper than owning in all of America's 50 biggest metro area
The hidden costs of homeownership are skyrocketing
Nearly 20% Of Recent San Francisco Home Sales Were Underwater
Always there are cycles, and parroting one-sided simple-minded talking points like “it’s always better to buy” only causes harm.
Sometime’s it’s better to sell, specifically before everyone else has to sell
Of course “owning a home” and “owing a mortgage” are very different things, and there’s almost always nuance in all things. Try not paying the mortgage or property taxes and see who owns what. There won’t be any nuance then.
California's Latest Hustle: Utility Bills Based On Ratepayers' Income
Gen Z, the Most Pessimistic Generation in History, May Decide the Election
Pessimistic? Can’t imagine why.
Will pandering politicians woo young and “minority” voters by promising to legalize cannabis?
Ref: