Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Why You Should Have Silver In Your Portfolio As Well As Gold


Why You Should Have Silver In Your Portfolio
As Well As Gold
Silver has had quite a run the last couple months, so it's no surprise that it has gained much attention and interest from investors - even more so than gold. It is extremely volatile, however, and tends to rise or fall in spurts - so I'd like to focus on its attributes as compared to gold, make a case for holding some, and discuss some ultimate price possibilities.

Gold is known as the ultimate form of money; the king of money. Silver is generally thought of as gold's little brother or 'Poor Man's Gold'. It is said that:

Gold is the money of Monarchs,
Silver is the money of Gentlemen,
Barter is the money of Peasants, and
Debt is the money of Slaves.......read on

IMF Lowers Dollar, Yen Weights in Its SDR Valuation Basket, Increases Euro - But still no Gold or Yuan

Bloomberg:

By Candice Zachariahs
Nov 15, 2010 6:12 PM ET

The International Monetary Fund reduced the weighting of the U.S. dollar and the yen and increased that of the euro in its Special Drawing Rights valuation basket after its regular five-year review.

The value of the SDR, which the IMF created in 1969 to supplement its member countries official reserves, will continue to be based on a basket of currencies comprised of the dollar, euro, yen and pound, the fund said in an e-mailed statement. UBS AG, the world’s second-largest foreign-exchange trader, said in June that the fund may include the Australian and Canadian dollars in the SDR basket this year, boosting demand for the commodity-backed currencies.

“There’s a long-term trend towards less U.S. dollars and more euro in terms of where central banks are putting their reserves, and this is consistent with that,” said Joseph Capurso, a currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. “There was some talk of the IMF putting in other currencies like the Aussie, but they’ve kept to the big four.”

The greenback’s weighting declined to 41.9 percent compared with 44 percent after a 2005 review, the fund said in its statement dated Nov. 15. The euro’s share rose to 37.4 percent from 34 percent. The yen’s fell to 9.4 percent from 11 percent, while the pound was little changed at 11.3 percent. SDRs are the Washington-based lender’s unit of account.

The new valuations will be effective Jan. 1, the fund said.

Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver - The Chinese angle

Readers of this blog may have seen this video of Chinese TV promoting the investment virtues of silver in the past, but I thought with the "Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver" campaign under way at the moment it was a good time to remind my readers what the Smart Money is doing, and has been for the last 2 years..

Fidel's Message on the Dangers of Nuclear War

An interesting interview with Fidel Castro by Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research. Read the text of the interview here

This video was recorded at the end of Michel's interview:


Silver Fat Cat

GOLD: STILL A RODNEY DANGERFIELD ASSET

Courtesy of FMX Connect

by Jason DeSena Trennert

“It just can’t be right,” said the 30-something hedge fund manager through a towel after a grueling 45 minutes on the squash courts of the New York Athletic Club.

“I mean, G. Gordon Liddy is trying to selling it to me on Fox News. My orthodontist owns gold -- he wears gold, for crying out loud. It just can’t be right,” he said, shaking his head, his voice trailing.

The case against gold is well-known and, until relatively recently, time-tested. The yellow metal is never ever really consumed, provides no yield, and carries with it storage costs. The polemic surrounding gold, like the inflation vs. deflation debate, is enough to result in bar fights in some sections of this grand city and it’s hard to find too many investors who are agnostic about it. You either see it as the barbarous relic of the retail crowd or a necessary hedge against the cupidity of politicians the world over. Despite the recent run-up in gold, it is, by our lights, too early to fade. There are now, unquestionably, elements of froth in the market that should give investors pause. But if there is one fact that is missed among investment sophisticates, it’s that investing in gold is still considered a hopeless backwater at most large mutual fund companies in this country. It is for this reason, that we believe that it is not yet over-owned.

I find a certain irony in the fact that I have two friends in the investment business who, after enjoying great success and fortune managing other peoples’ money in the 1980s and 1990s, have been, in their retirement, buying physical gold. They are unknown to each other and are different in many ways save for the fact that they were born in foreign lands – one in Armenia, the other in Cuba. They live in America, not by tradition or family ties, but by choice. Despite the fact that they so obviously believe in the great promise of this country, they have both come to the conclusion that they should hedge their hard-earned fortunes with hard assets. For them, their decision to own gold isn’t the result of some ethereal academic exercise, it is based on life experiences most people born in America couldn’t possibly understand.......read on

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