My SEC licenses are long expired and you shouldn’t take financial advice from a washed up ex-broker/financial advisor, not to mention a guy with less than $250 to his name. But I do have some thoughts, and remember, This is NOT a recommendation!
It’s been over a decade that I woke up and had the market on my mind, why today was any different is beyond me. I suppose it has something to do with the fact a buddy of mine bought 500 shares of an old stock pick of mine (FFIV) last month and has made a couple bucks after I looked at the chart and did a little research. I’ve been checking in on it and decided to take a broader look at the market this morning while sipping my coffee, “what a mess”!
I was never big on being glued to the Bloomberg, micro-managing numbers, or following the herd. The market has a heartbeat of its own and if you watch it and listen to the little hairs on the back of your neck without the television on you can get a decent sense of the way money breathes.
Look at the historical NASD, DJIA, and gold charts here:
NASD:
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/nasdaq1978.html
DJIA:
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/djia1900.html
Gold
http://goldprice.org/gold-price-history.html
I’m so, so, so very happy that I’m not responsible for anyone’s portfolio anymore!
I think we are going to see a major “correction” (decline) in the US market and its going to hurt unless you’re shorting, and shorting is a risky business, trust me, I KNOW!
Diversifying is, in my humble opinion, something one should be doing before they diversify, diversify, and diversify some more. And then you need to think LONG TERM, and longer term, invest for your old age, not tomorrow.
If I had money I’d be looking at tying some up in foreign (NOT EU) investments. Brazil, Australia, and other nations who are more or less independent from the US/European economy. If I was still sitting at my desk today, it would probably be the day I retired, bought a sailboat, and sailed into the sunset.
Money is a funny thing. Not having it can be uncomfortable (for me) but not having it when you are plugged into rent, credit, fuel, and insurance can be unbearable. In the last month I lost my laptop, iPod, battery charger, and starting battery, but I’m still living in paradise with Love in my heart and good karma & friends all around. Money is just paper and doesn’t nourish me physically, psychologically, or spiritually.
My financial advice to myself today would be to protect what I have, not worry about gain, and diversify/increase my international portfolio. I’d be looking to move laterally. I’d also be looking at commodities (foreign & domestic), and possibly taking some profit out to buy tangible things like a sailboat, land, or things that would make my heart smile (travel).
I’m going spearfishing to my new spot again today or tomorrow. My buddy from Brazil (Mario) just shot a 
beautiful fat snapper there the other day (15m), but it’s deep and diving that deep scares me. I need to work on my deep diving (12-15 meters) because that’s where the fish are. It’s not easy to hunt fish so deep but that’s where the payoff is, same goes for money. You may have to look at some deep, foreign, and “uncomfortable” options to follow the money, but that’s where the fish are, I mean, that’s where the money is.
Just food for thought. Panama real estate seems to be a good investment as well, some of my friends have done quite well.
Carla and I watched a movie last night that really touched my heart, “ Buena Vista Social Club”. It really touches on the heart, passion, and family vibe that runs deep throughout Latin America. “The Motorcycle Diaries” is also one of my favorite films, I highly recommend both.
As I write this Carla wants me to mention that I just made the best hummus of all time. About $0.70 makes us enough hummus (big batch) to eat liberally for a week. We like it on home made flat bread with vegetables, fish, or whatever. It’s good clean food.
Peace from paradise.
– alex
PS, Carla just posted a new blog.
Hey Alex, It’s crazy times back here in the Matrix.
In the alternate universe we live in, an increasing amount of volume on the stock exchanges is traded by robots using sophisticated algorithmic software to analyze and react in milliseconds to computer-generated stories written by robots using narrative science software.
Our national debt in the U.S. is rising by $3.7 billion per day – a pace that puts us on track to break $20 trillion by 2015. Our elected leaders are more pouring debt into an unretractable debt hole in an attempt to stave off system-wide collapse – which is akin to giving a bar full of drunks booze in order to fix alcoholism.
The Federal Reserve, working at the behest of the banking cartel, is attempting to inflate asset prices with zero interest rate policy and QE to infinity so people feel rich (wealth effect) and keep spending which will insure their perpetual debt servitude to their baking slave masters.
Needless to say this debt Ponzi scheme is not sustainable, so the only thing I’d be buying is out of the money puts on a Black Swan event. In other words short the market! Either that, or follow Mark Twains advice … “I am more concerned about the return of my money than the return on my money.”
http://www.contrarianism.net
While I’m not nearly as pessimistic as the previous poster, I will concede that world markets are a giant mess that is unlikely to get any better in the near future. More apocalyptic visions are premature however, seeing as the magical pretzels the Fed and Treasury have woven out monetary policy show no signs of stress fatigue, much less critical failure.
To my layman eyes, it appears that markets are quite happy in absorbing trillions of dollars of freshly minted fiat money, especially since those dollars are imprisoned behind the impregnable holdings of Tier 1 financial institutions.
Yes, securities along with other exotic financial instruments are still widely used throughout the banking sector. Wall Street is still gambling with Main Street’s money. Politicians continue to kick the can down the road. But frankly, the system is so twisted and fundamentally corrupted that the only thing that’s been holding it together to begin with is the combined will of every participant. Regardless of the mechanism, everyone needs it to function, and therefore it does.
In summary, the market is a mutant, but a happy one at that. No reason to believe the mutations will kill it any time soon.
But I was surprised that you were a financial analyst in your former life. What a strange world we live in, where investment banking is so profoundly corrupt that you had to basically take a vow of poverty just to find spiritual fulfillment. I mean, really. It’s absurd that a profession should be so antithetical to a healthy lifestyle.
I guess the message I get from this is that the alternative living, whether on a boat or in an RV or out on a remote property, is far more fulfilling than the traditional Western lifestyle. And perhaps it isn’t because the alternatives are so wonderful, but because Western culture is so damn terrible.
YodaMouse – I found your explanation of our current situation is beautifully written. And I agree with you, Mr. Market seems quite complacent, but that’s what scares me…
The market is a complex system, and when complex systems are artificially suppressed they become extremely fragile, while at the same time on the surface exhibit no visible risk. In fact they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risk accumulates beneath the surface.
Political leaders, economic policymakers, and central planning fools efforts to stabilize systems always result in exactly the opposite. History is clear in this regard. Those who seek to avoid reality by hiding, transferring and obscuring risk and pain today paradoxically increase the probability of apocalyptic pain later. The free market “pressure relief valve” has been forcibly plugged which is causing the contents to build under pressure which will inevitably lead to a large-scale uncontained explosion. And the longer the system remains under pressure the worse the resulting harm when the explosion happens.
Risk cannot be eliminated, it can only be hidden or transferred. Once risk has been disconnected from consequence (as we have today) it becomes impossible to discover the price of capital and determine risk. Since risk cannot be eliminated, it can only be masked or shifted to another party, then the shell game that is being played out in Europe, China, Japan and the U.S. are only enabling risk to pile ever higher in the system. At some unknowable point in the future the accumulated risk and tower of debt will cause the entire system to fail.
We are living in a hall of mirrors. There is no way to see what is truly happening because the activist FED that has inserted itself into the market. Through targeted stimulation, endless money printing to infinity and backstopping everything that shows the slightest weakness, the FED has distorted the marketplace and perverted the true price discovery mechanism in the market. Today, there is no conceivable way to know what anything is worth. No doubt, the FED intends certain results by their actions, but unintended consequences are inevitable.
For these reasons, in my view, that the market is uninvestable. Like you (and everyone else) I have no idea when the house of cards comes tumbling down, but I am reminded of Ernest Hemingway admonition when was asked how he went bankrupt, he said, “Slowly, then all at once.”
— Contrarian
The vegies are freshest on Mondays..
Yodamouse
I cant believe I was a financial advisor either. However my relationship with money is one of understanding, not ignorance. My “poverty” (LOL) is a personal choice and I still have much more than the majority of people I live around.
However the price of having more money than I need is too expensive for me. I like my sleep, time, clean conscious, and spiritual clarity far too much. Worrying about the market, taxes, and general full-time concern about having more than others I find really boring and exhausting, life is so much more exciting. I live on a sailboat, free in the world, with Love and no bills, what is that “worth”?
I can’t go buy a new computer or iPod but I have time, and feel comfortable in my own skin and heart. I know I’m beating the same drum, and I’ll beat it until people listen as this is my “financial” advice,” live your life, love, and die with a smile on your face, an a hole in your pocket”!
I spoke to my old branch manager about a year ago for the first time in a decade. When I told him that I haven’t made over 8 or 9 grand in any calendar year since I left the firm he burst out into laughter “right”! Once I told him what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been, and was serious he didn’t know what to make of it.
Money can’t buy the important things in life like Love, health, peace, time, and spirituality. These are the things I want abundant in my life, and they are the “tangible assets”‘ I hold and protect in my portfolio. And no, health insurance is not “health”, “peace” doesn’t come from a spa, 10 day vacation package, or on a yoga CD, and love and spirituality require time as nourishment.
The US market is so overly saturated & inflated that it’s just lost elasticity. “Bouncing back” isn’t a reality because the American philosophy that money is a commodity is false and we just can’t print as much as we want. We (America) used to believe in producing things of quality at a fair price and that philosophy has evaporated in a cloud of gold-plated bling, plastic shit, war, and bad food. And the sad thing is we don’t even produce the plastic shit that we consume on an epic proportion. The gap between fat and starving will correct itself as we DO live in a natural world, thank God.
The truth is I trust sharks (literally), and nature much more than I do the western monetary system. Life is “give & take”, not “take and take some more”. We do get what we deserve, and ignorance is not an excuse. You want the bling and to consume more resources than your neighbor, Well you’ll pay for it with your life (health) and freedom (time). This is how nature works, the weak always suffer the most.
The bits of financial news (television) I have seen sounds like the voice of Charlie Brown’s parents to me if you can remember back that far: “wa wa, wawawa, wa wa wa”. Sounding “intelligent” doesn’t make you intelligent no matter how smart your
suit is, and using over-complicated verbiage and concepts to describe basic financial problems I find insulting, but people seem to listen, fear it, and buy it hook line and sinker. The funny thing is everyone seems to think they have an “understanding” of how finance works and run around regurgitating, and believing, what they hear on CNN. Thus “the Hurd” is born and the fed slaughters what it needs. Even a bull is cattle, and the fatter you are the tastier.
Jumping off the “financial” cliff is a hell of a lot more fun than falling off it, especially when you have no control over it. “wahoooooo”!!!!!
I prefer living with financially “poor” people as their value system revolves around the things I find important. That’s why I suggested watching “Buena Vista Social Club”. Carla and I both want to lift anchor and visit Cuba before the fast-food invasion.
Contrarian,
I’d take Mark Twains advice.
It’s funny, the show “Doomsday Preppers” was interested in doing a segment on me and they kept asking me about the “event” I was prepping for. “The reality is I prepped for an event that has already taken place”, I kind of told them to “F’-off” as they are just looking to make fun. People are so focused on the shell game they can’t see that they have already invested too much personal freedom and time (life, we only have so much) in a collapsing system that it’s time to get out and take responsibility for ourselves as well as mankind itself. Most have a tolerance, and wear blinders for greed, I don’t. Most also have a predisposition to be led, I don’t.
Maybe I’m a slacker but the idea of working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, 365 days a year till I’m 65 years old is ludicrous to me, “not on your life”! When we take more than we need, we take from others (distribution of wealth (resource)) and I’m not down with that.
I surely don’t have the answers but all I can say is I wake up to an alarm less than 6 times a year, usually when I have to meet someone, or drop someone at the airport, and I can make love, swim, read, write, and play with my camera or guitar at any time of day. Whats “poverty” ?
The biggest tragedy of all for me though is watching western philosophy pollute the Kuna (indigenous) culture. I live watching the last bit of pure innocence dissipate in the wind, like life leaves the eyes of a fish after I thrust the point of my blade into it’s brain. It’s almost too much for me to bear and often brings tears to my eyes. Jet skis and outboards are invading the last bit of peaceful nature available to mankind and it breaks my heart. The worst part is when people of the west see it they don’t even notice, even the Panamians visiting from the city just 50 miles away.
I’m going swimming on the reef with my shark friends :) looking into the eye of a large shark that passes me on a reef puts it all into perspective. Life is whole, simple, and rewarding on the reef. life makes sense, and it’s always a good idea to be a little aggressive as There is no room for the weak. the system works perfectly, as does the relationship man (Kuna) has with it.
I’m just so grateful to have finally found a woman that understands me and I never would have found her in a suit or chasing a buck. Carla once told me something I’ll never forget: “Love is simply understanding”, it is so true. And understanding and believing in the system (community) in which we live is essential, if not, we must rebuild it.
Peace.
Alex – yes, you’ve got it figured out my friend. For anyone living inside the “system” it’s very difficult to see what true wealth is. Thank you for reminding me.
The trouble is …. as long as we choose to remain in the system (Matrix), every minute of every day we are bombarded with propaganda and our minds saturated with lies. Living inside the system causes us to loose our bearings, suffer vertigo, and forget what is truly important in life. Everything gets perverted… the big lie become the truth, up looks like down, right becomes wrong. We accept that we must trade our life and soul for our whole life to earn money. We are constantly reminded that we are not enough. This message is inculcated into us from birth, thus, we strive and climb, we believe we need more, and this message is constantly reinforced by our culture. We spend the best hours, days, and years of our lives working to make money to buy stuff in the hope that that the newer, bigger, shinier bobble … in the hope that thing will complete us and we will finally be happy. All the chasing, striving and competing leaves us utterly exhausted and empty. At the end of the day all we want is to be distracted and amused to take our mind off, what Sterling Haden called, “the sheer idiocy of our charade”.
All reminds me of Orwell and Huxley’s prophecies about the future. Although each a different vision for the future, the ultimate outcome they predicted has become true. They were both right.
Orwell feared books would be banned. Huxley feared there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared we would be deprived of information. Huxley feared we would be deloused with so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with amusing and distracting ourselves. As Huxley feared we would be on alert to tyranny but would fail to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions. Orwell said people would be controlled by the inflicting pain. Huxley said people would be controlled by inflicting pleasure. Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.
We are subject to the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. And the ultimate irony is we think we are free. Meanwhile we choose to eat, consume, amuse, and borrow ourselves to death.
– Contrarian
I dunno man. The Doomsday Prepper show hasn’t come off like they’re making fun. I thought it would be, but those preppers are SERIOUS! Amazing some of the stuff they’re doing, and have been doing. A couple do have, as part of their plan, a bug-out boat, but none are close to what you’re doing. Seems to me it would’ve been a great way to reach a large audience, get your message out more, and even drive more traffic to your site.
Waaaayyyy too deep for me guys. I’ve got more of a Jeff Spicoli attitude towards its all. Life’s just a way of looking at that wave and saying, “Hey dude, lets party”.
I agree on the fact the market has its own heartbeat, its alive, so must live
somewhere, flows like a river. I’ve tried to ‘figure out’ the market. Predictably
unpredictable conclusion, like the human species, resistant to stress over time.
So, despite logic, if i’m betting my money, market goes up?! Just money, why
make my power in life, which is why i follow this site’s theme. Keep the dream alive alex, great
job.
Wow, i have not had phone and uber, uber, uber limited email since the 12th. We got great news. Carla’s dad is coming to visit us for Christmas.
The dry season has kicked off in full swing and the days are perfect. Blue sky, turquoise water, and puffy white clouds, life is good.
Also we may be staying in the San Blas for a while. We got a referral from a previous charter for a charter just after the new year, and another for February. If everything comes together as its looking we are planning on going to Cartagena in April for a haul out.
Peace from Paradise
Hi Guys,
Was reading a poll on MSN that said: 7 of the 10 happiest countries in the world are in Latin America, USA came in 33rd.
I live in Canada and it’s winter over here, so, right now I feel like it is ranking last.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Luis in Toronto