The GOLD scream room

[annieB]

#@^^**##??++@###

[iwealth]

Literally 5 seconds before I logged in here I checked the markets, yelled out loud a few expletives and explained to my wife about my recent hatred of gold.  Then I laughed out loud when I saw this thread. So I'll join in..

@#!@$@#%#!!!!!!@$!!!!

[buddtholomew]

No comment. I guess I'm now in the "hold and hope" mode.

[PP67]

What's sort of ironic is people (but not me) pay good money to be scared out of their wits on these super monster rollercoasters  that take you slowly click-by-click up to dizzy heights and then take you screaming down the steepest decline they can design all so you can be terrified out of your mind...  and then you go around to do it all again...

[MediumTex]

If you have held your PP for even one year you have seen no overall portfolio losses of any kind.

If you want to focus on gold, here is what you are dealing with:



It doesn't look like anything worth screaming about to me.  Gold is a volatile asset and its price fluctuates.

The PP is supposed to be about peace of mind.  If you are freaking out about it because you tend to freak out about your investments any time they are not doing what you want them to do, then you are missing out on a lot of the benefits that the PP has to offer.

As best I can tell, the worst any recent PP investor has done is an overall decline in his portfolio of about 2%.  To read some of these posts, you would think that people were having to cope with 30-40% losses like stock investors have to deal with periodically.

[iwealth]

I thought this was more a comedic expression of frustration than a true freakout. Maybe I misread.

But even the early adopter long-term PP holders have to feel at least a slight level of disgust with gold's recent performance. If not, I envy the complete emotional detachment. Some day I hope to be there.

[craigr]

The benefit of the mutual funds is that the individual assets are not witnessed as they go up and down.

2008 was -40% losses in stocks.
2009 was -21% losses in bonds.
2013 may be X% losses in gold?

The mutual funds hide this stuff and it makes it a lot easier for many investors to cope with the swings.

Gold is volatile. Then again, so are stocks and bonds. It's just how diversified portfolios work. There is almost always a loser among the set.

[sophie]

annieB I thought this was a hilarious thread to start!

Just repeat the following to yourself 10 times:

What a wonderful opportunity to buy more gold.

And then repeat this:

It doesn't matter that gold is tanking, because the portfolio holds assets that are going up and overall is remarkably stable.

I agree with MT - a 2% loss (at worst) while one asset has dropped 20-30% is bloody miraculous.  Remember what happens to a 50/50 portfolio, or one of those horrid target date funds that are 80-90% stocks, when stocks drop that much?  I remember quite well, and it's how I ended up in the land of the PP.

[systemskeptic]

I have a 50% allocation to Gold and I feel quite comfortable.  In fact I purchased more Gold last month when it was in the mid 1300s.  My advice: do not panic sell, if you are diversified which you should be with the PP then there is nothing to worry about.

[annieB]

My post was mostly for the humor of our human conditions.Pick one.
When I started the PP, bonds and gold were both in downtrends on
some basic monthly charts.So i invested about 35%.Now watching,waiting.

Still,sometimes I'm sure it's all to punish me.

[Tyler]

On days like today, remember that frustration like this is an opportunity for great profit!

[EDIT to label the mystery link: I imagine this is what the gold scream room looks like  ]

http://tinyurl.com/ax43yfu

[Pointedstick]

On days like today, remember that frustration like this is an opportunity for great profit!

http://tinyurl.com/ax43yfu

Indeed. And furthermore, a 0.5% one-day loss is really not very bad in the grand scheme of things…