"Canuck57" wrote in message
...
nom=de=plume wrote:

You really don't know much about economics or the Chinese. Fortunately,
it doesn't matter much what you know or don't know.
Correct. What we know maters not to the big picture. You and I have
zero influence.

The economics are actually pretty straight-forward. Basically, we need
each other. The Chinese could decide to cash out and that would hurt the
US quite badly, but their economy would be hurt just as much if not more
so.

Quite true. Having the US shut down their buying for a deaper depression
does not help China. But also note, China's economy is going to overtake
the US one shortly. They already buy more cars. Tis puts China in a
great position at the barganing table.

For example, if Obama gets anti-free trade and wants to unfairly tax them,
they can just say then we don't need USDs and the BS debt game is over.
Right now the US is down 3 pawns, a knight and a rook and not looking
pretty.

But I follow it for my own reasons, buy and hold investors get squshed
like bugs for events like these. Foe example, acorrect observation
would have had you mostly in cash in the fall of 2008. Which means you
wouldn't have taken the loses most did.

Well, hindsight is usually pretty accurate, but the reality is that a
well-diversified portfolio is almost as good and requires no magic.
Greenspan himself made a near-identical comment somewhat recently.

Hindsight? My ass. If you had your eyes open you would have seen this
depression a coming. I went into the fall of 2008 with 90% cash and am up
30+% on my US accounts. Luck? Nope. I saw the yeild rates drop below
inflation, liquidated all lending and banks and looked for nice exists for
the rest. In December 2008 and later I started buy back, very
selectively.

But admit, I didn't expect the fall out to be as deap and in non-US funds
didn't cash up as much as I should have.

Well this time, the last place you want to be is bonds, debt, GIC, CD,
money market prefering hard assets in oil, or even bars of gold. Me, I
treat the price of a barrel of oil as a benchmark. Now that China makes
and sells more autos than the US, oil has a future and will price itself
independantly of any one currency. Including a depreciating USD.

Precious metals is not a great long-term investment. You aren't able to
take advantage of market fluctuations. But, to each his own. If you think
it's safe and you can live with the historically poor performance, that's
certainly your decision.

Stocks will continue to do well... the more diversificiation you have,
the better off you'll be.

Maybe not, but the TCK-B I bought in January sure turned a nice profit. I
have no intention of holding it forever, in fact I have already taken 1/2
off the table.

But what you say is true of any stock, it is maybe 10-30 days in a 5 or 10
year cycle that they gets 80% of their gains. The rest being ho-hum and
for the dividends. And most companies don't pay enough of those.

I had a friend who was very actively watching and betting (up and down) on
one high tech company... Sun Microsystems. He made lots of money timing the
stock fluctuations, but it took a lot of work too. I'm guessing he made
$500K over two years. Then, he got out. Now all his money is quite
diversified nationally and internationally.

I don't believe in buy/hold. I actively manage. In todays environment
you actively manage or get cleaned. I want double digit returns or I side
line the cash. Not worth the risk to invest in a diaper wipe company at
2% to find they are cooking the books.

I generally buy/hold, but not individual stocks. I don't have the time to
get to that granularity. As Alan Greenspan said in an interview a couple of
years ago, I'm "fully diversified."

Oil will be the next big move. Say next summer, go over $100/barrel to
stay up above $100 / barrel. Might even go much higher. I figure maybe
$150 before a break. Possibly $200 if Obama ticks off China.

I think it's a good bet that oil prices will rise over the long term. I
think $150 is quite reasonable. I don't think China has much say in the
price, other than the obvious... they want as much as they can get.

--
Nom=de=Plume