Or maybe it just seems a bit crazier than normal after a four-day weekend.
First, Dubai. By itself, the Dubai crisis shouldn't be a big deal globally. The questions are whether there is something more to come, or whether this sparks a larger panic. Right now, markets have been reacting as though this isn't much of a story. Maybe living in times where the word "trillions" gets thrown around like tissue paper leaves one immune to hearing some entity can't repay $80 billion in loans.
And then there's gold.
My conviction is that the gold bull continues. But if you've been reading Controlled Greed, you know my gold investment (the ETF) is an insurance play, not a get rich play. If I'm right and the gold bull will go forward over time, at some point I'll take some profits. Just not now.
Peter Brimelow of MarketWatch has an interesting piece about gold bugs and Dubai. Check it out if this story is part of your investing universe. Note this bit:
Another veteran, Dow Theory Letters, Richard Russell, felt moved to write on Friday: "Over the holiday, I've been reading the gold advisories that I usually follow. Almost without exception, they've had their subscribers trade out of gold. ... I've said over and over ad nauseam, that you can't out-trade a powerful bull or bear market. Bull markets like this gold bull market come along, if we're lucky, once or twice in a lifetime. I'm talking about bull markets that can make you rich. But there's something very different about this gold bull market. It can do two things -- it can make you rich AND it may save you from a disaster in your other investments. This gold bull market is attacking the very foundation of all investments denominated in paper currencies."
Again, my gold investment isn't about getting rich. But this bull market in the yellow metal isn't about jewelry demand or anything like that. It is about gold as money and a store of value going back throughout history.
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