Budd,

At 10% of your total portfolio, I really don't understand all your angst about gold. Seems like you hold some long bonds and a bunch of equities. Haven't you had a good run in the last couple of years despite the down trend in gold? Even if it drops 20%, you are only down 2% overall, right?

Longstreet, I don't know the answer to your question but I do know that whenever you read something that is written by someone who has a vested interest in the price of gold going up (in this case a seller of precious metals, if I am not mistaken), you should take what they say with a grain of salt....

Frugal, You have a European PP already, correct? I am curious how it has done so far this year. Year-to-date the US PP seems to be up about 7%. We are all slightly negative in the gold slice, but you should be up 5-6% in gold because of the falling value of the Euro relative to the dollar. I don't k...

I just find it kind of amazing that the common Helvetians will actually get to vote on this. I am trying to imagine something similar happening here in the US.

The point is not to keep up with the Joneses.  The point is to have a portfolio that more or less keeps up in normal times, but will preserve your accumulated wealth even if the Joneses are absolutely crushed. rickb, thanks for this eminently quotable summary of the PP philosophy. That should at th...

The other is that physical gold is worth relatively much more than stocks and bonds stashed in a tax-deferred account.  That's because with the physical gold, you only need to pay the collectibles tax on the gains when you sell.  With the retirement account, you need to pay full ordinary income rat...

Mark, I was actually asking a much simpler question but I am happy to have it taken in a more interesting direction. My question was merely if gold and LTTs have been more volatile than stocks this year. I asked it at about 8:00am today and, sure enough, LTTs were up over 1% and gold went up almost ...

Pointedstick wrote: Looks like Wednesday was a good time to buy.

Yes, or late last night in Hong Kong. LTTs up in early action as well. I am rubbing my hands together and dreaming of future riches. Think of all the jewels!

Thanks for that, Gosso. Really good stuff. I am reminded of something that I read about watching a baseball hitter over the course of a season... that you can't really see the difference between a .300 hitter and a .280 hitter if you are sitting in the stands watching every game, because the differe...

I have also just learned about the "gain vs pain" parameter.  It is basically the sum of the daily/monthly positive returns vs the sum of the daily/monthly negative returns.  This is similar to the Sharpe Ratio, but it provides another look at the data.  The PP has a "gain vs pain&qu...

I thought someone out there might have the relative volatility numbers on gold, stocks and LTTs. In my short time in the PP (since the beginning of this year more or less), it seems to me that both gold and LTTs have been more volatile than stocks... that they both have considerably more days than s...

Lowe, Are you the next great gold swami or are you just thinking out loud here? :) Speaking of population pyramids, I found this funky site where you can check out the whole world or individual countries: http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-population-pyramid It starts in 1950 and plays through...

The K-Man is the Indiana Jones of investing. He's probably enjoying the current nuttiness. Plus he likes stocks a lot which have done pretty well recently.

It's hard to keep buying when the price just keeps going down but it makes more sense than chasing performance after the price has already risen. I find it easier to buy stocks when they're down because of my strong belief, even if it may be erroneous, that stocks will recover several times in my l...

I wish I had an answer to your question, Dualstow. It just seems to me that with all the money printing going on in the world, something could snap fairly quickly and gold might be the place to be if and when that happens. I don't even have any idea what the outcome of the printing might be. I just ...

Just to clarify, Sophie, it's a fixed rate of .00% plus 2X the rate of inflation which is .74%. The composite rate is 1.48%.

Also, I'm curious... Has there ever been any talk about a secondary market in savings bonds?

Thanks for posting that, Bean. There must be something wrong with the picture when I look at 1.48% and think "Not bad."

Just stating the obvious here... As rickb said, no long term bonds, which means not holding the PP's top performing asset so far this year. Edit: Just saw Reub's post where he already covered this, Sorry about that! Also, the fact that PRPFX still holds Swiss Francs is really puzzling to me and just...

Just curious if this rate was announced yet or if they are holding off until Monday. Can't find anything online yet.

Thank you MangoMan & rickb. I get it... more or less. Potentially an opportunity to own GTU, and potentially a headache if one doesn't enter and exit at the right time. Thanks for taking the time to fill me in. Much appreciated.

Reub wrote: I would just rather own something that more accurately tracks the price of gold, for better or for worse.

Does IAU fit that description?

Thanks for posting, Reub. Didn't know if anyone would be on the forum on a Saturday morning. From the few GTU posts I have read, it sounds like folks are trying to exploit this price differential but that they are the ones really being exploited. Or is that too harsh an analysis?

Totally ignorant about GTU and I don't know what the heck you guys are talking about when you say that GTU is "trading at a discount." Does this ETF really not track the price of gold closely? If so, why hold it? Thanks.

Again, barrett, just posting some info.  I will endeavor to post more completely in the future.  As I reread this post, I hope I did not wander. bedraggled, Wander about all you like. And don't take my word for anything. I'm just playing devil's advocate. It's always interesting to see the beginnin...

I mentioned in my deflation rambling that investor Jim Rogers likes gold again at $950, approximately half the price of its 2011 high.  Rogers suggests that is a proper retracing of the big increase.  Harry Dent, the deflation guy, said watch for gold to drop to $600 with an ultimate landing at $25...