Oil: Sick of worthless ETF’s!

Check out my recent research piece on Seeking Alpha here.

On the front page of the Financial Times yesterday (sorry, I gave up reading the Wall Street Journal when it went mass market) the headline was “Oil at $60 for first time in six months.”

How wonderful! I was long oil using commodity ETFs/ETNs since December when the price was in the 30s. Thus I expected the price to be up 50-80%. This is where I hit the empty well.

The bottom line is that I will be moving on and not dealing with ETF’s that can’t perform as the marketing people suggest. There are a million excuses why the slippage happens, but my clients don’t care and neither do I.

Check Out Money 101 This Week

You can read the whole article here. Bottom line is that never have we been more confused on the question of inflation or deflation. I attempt to explain what the issues are and what is at stake.

Prices go down, people lose jobs, interest rates disappear and the economy crumbles. The first time we saw it in the U.S. was back in 1836 when the railroads went bust, credit was squeezed, and cash was impossible to get. The money supply shrank by 34 percent! The next era of deflation occurred during the Civil War, and the last time we experienced it was during the 1930s, and we all know how that worked out. Deflation creates an environment where there is no incentive to invest and grow anything but a Victory Garden.

Let me know if you have any comments. Feel free to post them directly on NMBJ’s website.

Pres. Obama: Counterfeiter-in-Chief?

Lee Eugene Munson and Patrick Kirts comment on the U.S. currency. Published on Seeking Alpha

I don’t quite remember when, sometime in the past year, I first began hearing average people say that the government ultimately has the power to fix the economy, because it can just ‘print money,’ but, in a few short months, the sentiment has become commonplace. It boggles the mind, but it now seems to be a truth commonly accepted by just about everyone–politicians, journalists, investors–even the man in the street. At Portfolio Asset Management this change in sentiment has altered part of our investing strategy. Gold is now back on the menu along with shorting treasuries. Alternative assets have gone to the top of our list of potential funds and the bond funds we hold are under tremendous scrutiny. The bottom line is that we are under fire–not by the market itself, but by the government policy of debasing the currency. Few are vigilant and the delay in the market reacting to the changes may take time. Meaning, some sound strategies may not work even though a rational investor would say otherwise.
Read the full article here.