Thanks for running the numbers, guys. Isn't a 40-year bond actually TOO volatile for the PP? Or, put another way, isn't an allocation of 25% too high when rates are this low? It seems to me that the bond quadrant in Japan and Europe currently has more volatility than the stock and gold quadrants. F...

So, less than two months ago, the Japanese long bond was about where the German Bund is now. The yield has plunged to .292 in less than 60 days. Can one of you bondy, mathy types run some numbers on what kind of bond returns a Japanese investor would have gotten so far this year? If you don't want ...

The Swiss 10y bond yields -0.34% at the moment... but does that mean one expects the Swiss economy to be depressed for years to come? It's a very strong economy only suffering from a currency that is overvalued. It could just mean that there is a huge demand for Swiss net financial assets by intern...

You're making an a assumption that investors are going to act like 0% is some kind of hard limit for price moves. There has never been a 30yr bond that has gone negative as far as I know. So I am saying it is unlikely to happen. That doesn't mean it's impossible, nor does it matter for the purposes...

I believe that narrower rebalancing bands are necessary when rates are so low because it's harder for bonds to move up to 35% of a portfolio's value. But I'd be happy to have people poke holes in that idea. Pure rubbish!  See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_convexity No it's not rubbish! T...

bedraggled wrote: This thread has been dormant ten months.

So, thoughts, please, on negative rates and gold priced in US Dollars.

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/go ... deflation/

You sound really young in your podcasts. I thought you were in your twenties or early thirties. Ha, thanks! Currently in my mid forties, so if I go to the doctor, they don't try to fix anything anymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzEhoyXpqzQ Have you called into Stef's show? For some reason I'...

dualstow wrote: That's certainly true. They don't like gold. Still, the criticism seems to be that Rickards makes predictions all the time, and that they don't come true. Have they ever come true?

I'd ignore people who make claim to make price predictions.

... aaand more: http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org/2 ... est-rates/

Kriegsspiel wrote: Individual Europeans could still buy some gold, if they were reaching for yield. It'd be like 1,000 times less voluminous.

Which is probably happening as well.

This post has some nice illustrations to answer this question:

http://mishtalk.com/2016/03/15/reader-a ... e-returns/

I've seen this ascribed to the uncertainty of negative interest rates, which are now being talked about as inevitable for many countries that aren't in the negative zone yet (e.g. Japan).  That makes sense.  I'd expect even more gold-buying if banks start imposing negative interest rates on savings...

Haven't looked at that velocity chart in a while. Thanks for that. For all I know we'll soon have negative velocity, too! 

I don't agree. I think Mish is correct, people are moving to gold to avoid paying interest on their savings. However, if it looks like the US is going to raise rates then gold will reverse. There is nothing more complex here than a basic carry trade. I would qualify that to say that if it looks lik...

What gold is responding to is inflationary central bank behavior. The central bank cannot create noticeable inflation. All they can do is boost bank reserves, but if credit demand remains low (or is expected to go lower in future) bank reserves won't do much if anything at all, besides ending up as...

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the connection between "moving to gold to avoid paying interest on savings" and deflation. Low and especially negative interest rates are evidence or deflationary pressures. One explanation could be for example that people expect future prices to be lower than...

More evidence that gold responds well to deflation: http://mishtalk.com/2016/03/04/demand-of-gold-surges-blackrock-suspends-issuance-of-new-shares-for-ishares-gold-trust/ "One of the biggest factors behind gold’s rise has been negative rates. The Bank of Japan last month joined a growing number...

http://mishtalk.com/2016/03/04/demand-of-gold-surges-blackrock-suspends-issuance-of-new-shares-for-ishares-gold-trust/ "One of the biggest factors behind gold’s rise has been negative rates. The Bank of Japan last month joined a growing number of central banks, including the Swiss National Bank...

I thought the bonds where suppose to loose value when rates increased. This is crazy! The Fed Funds rate is a short term rate. Put simply: The yield investors ask on a 30 year Treasury is essentially their expected average yield of all the 30 1 yr Treasurys inside that timespan (or all the 60 6 mon...

ochotona wrote: But you STILL have to pay IRS every year on the imputed income! It's a pain! That's why I'll never own them in a taxable account.

I believe was the main reason that led HB to discard Zeroes categorically as an option for PP investors.

So a US Dollar is a token denominated in units of the US Dollar? That is a circular definition, which doesn't actually define anything. That's a circular definition indeed. But I didn't propose it. The one who wrote that sentence is unfortunately you. No, I wrote the sentence with a blank in it. Yo...

That's what a fiat currency means. It's not backed by anything. There's no basic, fixed unit of value you can exchange it for. That's not true. Fiat money means it can be exchanged against the "service" of discharging debt imposed upon you out of nowhere by the US Treasury. As a result th...

Libertarian666 wrote: So a US Dollar is a token denominated in units of the US Dollar?
That is a circular definition, which doesn't actually define anything.

That's a circular definition indeed. But I didn't propose it. The one who wrote that sentence is unfortunately you.

Sure, but that still isn't a definition. For that, you would have to say "A US Dollar is a(n) _____________ that allows you to do...". What goes in the blank? Token. Ok, but a token denominated in what unit? If you buy a subway token (assuming they still have those), it is good for one ri...

A US Dollar allows you to discharge tax liabilities imposed upon you by the US Treasury, which are always denoted in US Dollar. Sure, but that still isn't a definition. For that, you would have to say "A US Dollar is a(n) _____________ that allows you to do...". What goes in the blank? To...