Gyroscopic Investing

dualstow wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:08 am I should add, with gold at 1470 I’m starting to get that Cortopassi feeling, like why gold, why. Naturally, I would have been even more enthusiastic when it had passed 1600. But, I plan to sell some munis (vp) and add some coins, so I haven’t given up on gold.

This certainly looks like a classic "sell what you can" panic.
I expect gold to go to the moon after the margin calls in the stock market are over.
But the PP should do better than almost any other portfolio in any event.

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:51 pm

Smith1776 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:30 pm Haha.

What I really find interesting is how much higher one's quality of life is when you don't have your life savings riding in an unbalanced wreck of a portfolio. I'm viewing all of this stuff from a place of detached curiosity.

Andrew Yang in his podcast with Joe Rogan remarked that if you give people a bill that they can't pay, their effective intelligence drops by about 1 standard deviation. The money issue eclipses the horizon of their mind. They become cognitively impaired essentially. The PP prevents that anxiety.

I remember Craig once saying "Us Permanent Portfolio guys are whistling past a graveyard." Yup.

Actually I have a very unbalanced portfolio which is about 63% gold, 17% Swiss Francs, and 20% US dollars (not counting my paid-off house as part of my portfolio).

But it is slanted toward protection from disaster, so when things are going poorly in society it does pretty well.

So how did you come up with that portfolio and that allocation?

jalanlong wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:17 am

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:51 pm

Smith1776 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 15, 2020 5:30 pm Haha.

What I really find interesting is how much higher one's quality of life is when you don't have your life savings riding in an unbalanced wreck of a portfolio. I'm viewing all of this stuff from a place of detached curiosity.

Andrew Yang in his podcast with Joe Rogan remarked that if you give people a bill that they can't pay, their effective intelligence drops by about 1 standard deviation. The money issue eclipses the horizon of their mind. They become cognitively impaired essentially. The PP prevents that anxiety.

I remember Craig once saying "Us Permanent Portfolio guys are whistling past a graveyard." Yup.

Actually I have a very unbalanced portfolio which is about 63% gold, 17% Swiss Francs, and 20% US dollars (not counting my paid-off house as part of my portfolio).

But it is slanted toward protection from disaster, so when things are going poorly in society it does pretty well.

So how did you come up with that portfolio and that allocation?

I had a standard PP until 1998.
Then I got worried about y2k, and said "What will survive a serious y2k event?"
The answer: gold.
So I was nearly 100% gold by 2000, which turned out to be pretty good lucky timing.

Then I decided to diversify a bit as well as get some interest, so I sold some of the gold in the mid 2000's to buy a couple of Swiss Franc annuities, one of which I'm in the process of cashing out. My plan was to put the proceeds of that annuity back in gold, but we'll see when we get to the final payout next year.

Recently I've been selling gold to come up with cash because I was planning to buy a house this year.

Obviously that's not going to happen, but I'm keeping the cash in T-bills while I watch what is going on in the markets. Maybe I'll even buy some stocks after this disaster plays out.

Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:48 am

dualstow wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 6:08 am I should add, with gold at 1470 I’m starting to get that Cortopassi feeling, like why gold, why. Naturally, I would have been even more enthusiastic when it had passed 1600. But, I plan to sell some munis (vp) and add some coins, so I haven’t given up on gold.

This certainly looks like a classic "sell what you can" panic.
I expect gold to go to the moon after the margin calls in the stock market are over.
But the PP should do better than almost any other portfolio in any event.

I am oddly calm. After mj made his comments, I assumed he likely had the right bias. You "think" gold should save the day immediately, and it severely underperforms. Oh well. At this point, we are all in the boat together. Every person in pretty much every market is getting hurt, unless you are a short seller. Which I expect some short selling restrictions might be coming shortly.

All I can hope for today is that bond dislocation at least somewhat disappears and bonds are at least some level of green.

I do feel a rebalance coming, either coming from small caps or silver (silver, ouch ouch ouch)

I no longer think of gold as a crisis asset. It is just this unknowable entity that many people around the world still hold and respect, and may prove helpful for diversification.

I also haven’t looked at how it’s doing relative to other currencies.

Cortopassi wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:51 am Which I expect some short selling restrictions might be coming shortly.

Last Friday we got that ban in and across some countries in EU (Italy, UK, Spain). Oddly enough today there are no such restrictions ... You know already where my VP goes. It will not end up well... people are damn scared here in EU..

Well, at least at the market halt here, my PP is actually up this morning, given that the weighting of TLT and cash have been going up %-wise and stocks and gold down.

So treading water for now....not complaining.

As a recovering "maximizer" I have to admit I'm feeling a little anxious about potentially not capitalizing on this mess, which is silly. I'm sure I'll be fine.

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
AND I FEEEEEEEEL FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNEEEEEE

Yep, they made it again this morning - short sales ban has been imposed in Italy and Belgium for the rest of the trading day (17th March), Spain till 17th April and France till further notice. Let's see, personally I will happily end this fool's game ...