How does my gold joke go again?
Oh yeah. Like this: “Gold. It’s shiny and it looks like the sun. It must be a god.”
My deliberately abrasive gold commentary doesn’t garner the sort of irritable rejoinders from precious metals enthusiasts it once did. By now, most of you understand I’m just trying to rile you up.
To be sure, my aversion to gold is real. I hate that I have to hold it. But “hate” is a relative term for me. I’m too resigned and apathetic in middle-age to be righteously angry at anything, let alone at the imperative of holding an inert metal in my portfolio.
Last week, I suggested that as long as you can get over the fact that gold’s up 125% in the short space of three years even after falling 20% from the nosebleed highs in January, it might be worth a look. I won’t recapitulate or offer a CliffsNotes version. You can read the article here for yourself.
I bring this up again on Tuesday because the balance of opinion among a bunch of people who’ll charge you 100bps (or more) to trail SPY says gold’s a bargain.
There’s the chart. It’s from the August installment of BofA’s monthly fund manager poll, which was bullish in the extreme.
A net 16% of survey panelists said gold’s currently undervalued. That was “up” 10ppt from July, and it’s the “highest” for that metric since March of 2023. (Negative readings are under-valuations, positive over-.)
As expounded in the above-mentioned Weekly, I don’t disagree. But I’ll never wholeheartedly endorse the bull case for an asset the “value” of which is explainable only by, as Ben Bernanke famously put it, “long-term tradition.”
Next thing you know you’re going to be writing about Crytpo again!
I highly recommend watching this movie- “Everyone is Lying to You for Money”, a documentary about cryptocurrency, written by and starring Ben McKenzie (of “The O.C.”).
I watched it on a recent United Airlines flight, right after I watched the documentary, “The AI Doc- or how I became an Apocaloptimist”.
I’d already seen the comedies that were offered.
“Next thing you know you’re going to be writing about Crytpo again!”
Crazy as that was, I have to admit: That ~$20k trip down the DeFi rabbit hole I took was well worth it. I came out of that three-month adventure down less than $3k, and with all sorts of great material. I still have my photography NFTs. I also know how that world works now. Plus, I got to meet Al Pacino’s daughter and Caitlin Cronenberg. All that and I escaped clean with $17k of the $20k I gambled intact and back safely at the bank. You ask me, that’s a bargain.
(I still own some Bitcoin. I don’t count Bitcoin in all of that.)
Just as I was about to hop down that rabbit hole out of curiosity, you came popping up with a wonderful tale to tell. I really love your adventure tales of crypto.
Sounds to me like you actually came out ahead!
I unsubscribed when he started writing about crypto. I hate it with a passion. Though less so because middle age. Cool he got to meet cronenberg though.
I hate gold. It’s illiquid, has no income, and has no use other than as a vehicle for speculation. Now it’s too expensive to buy safely. Ten years ago or so I bought what was a bunch for me just to get some for my asset allocation. Sadly, if I would have sold every thing I owned at the time, and changed it for gold I’d have tripled my money and more. That’s why i don’t like it. I still hold about 25 ounces or so, some being rare coins in the stash. But my investment income has tripled, something that wouldn’t have happened if I’d gone to gold. So, what the hell? Gold just isn’t my jam. Cash flow gives me everything I want.
You’re so wishy washy on gold…. on a kind day you have nothing good to say about it while
on another we’re told it’s been added to your portfolio. I suggest you get with the program and buy some North American or Australian miners, Quality producers like Agnico Eagle Mines AEM or Capricorn
Metals CRNLF or developers Skeena Resources SKE or Southern Cross SXGCF. When gold hits north of 7K you should 4 or 5X your money. If you’re feeling ballsy and want 15 or 20X go with Talisker Resources
TSKFF or Lahontan Gold LGCXF.. Want to go to the moon? 1911 Gold AUNBF or Nexgold Mining NXGCF.
The AISC is usually between 1,500 and 2,000K an ounce. At 5K gold that’s a 3K or higher profit. Imagine how you’d feel if tRump and Basset reprice the metal at 15K to help with the debt crisis?
It is eye-opening that someone is brave enough to lecture H. on investing.
As a side note, still waiting for a dip from Sun proxy.
Is he lecturing, or just trying to pump his own investments as if this were the comments section on YouTube or WallStreetBets? Totally inappropriate here IMHO.
I do own all these stocks. I wouldn’t mention them just to throw out some names. Do a search. Agnico Eagle out of Canada is one of the most respected company in the entire industry. Its market cap is 96 billion. Same with Capricorn in Australia. 7 B market cap. I bought early about 6 years ago. It has 16X since. I mention the stocks to point out they can be very profitable and good investments regardless how you feel about the metal.
I’ll wager you $100 they all will triple within a year and a half.
I highly recommend UTube for research. Interviews with the CEO’s is part of the homework as well as reading company websites for their Presentations. Industry publications like Northern Miner. News releases on Mining Hub (free). The analysts on Seeking Alpha are good especially
Taylor Dart. Read his analysis on Agnico Eagle. Even you might want to buy some.
UTube for research? That’s not what UTube is for.
Even Heisenberg needs to be put in his place from time to time. All of us in fact.
Jack, you’re full of shit and always have been. I let you stick around over the years because you pay for the privilege. The other day, you threatened to leave (for the umpteenth time) because you were aggrieved at the price of a Louis Vuitton beanie I was about to order, but just like all the other times you’ve intimated that your exit was imminent, you were bluffing. You didn’t cancel your subscription. Tonight, I’ve canceled your subscription for you and refunded you your last $20 payment. Enjoy that $20. As for that $100 “wager” you proposed above, that wouldn’t even pay for the socks I wore to dinner tonight in Asheville. (Here are those socks: https://www.chromehearts.com/socks/sport/176354XXXXXXXXX.html)
Now everybody say goodbye to Jack. Because he’s made his last appearance. As you put it yourself, Jack, everyone needs to be put in his place from time to time. You’ve just been put in yours.
Bye Jack. (Always remember: Mr. H does not suffer fools lightly, not in his house!)
That was not a decision I took lightly. Jack is (or was) a loyal subscriber and God knows I’m grateful for everyone who spends even a fraction of their valuable time reading what I have to say (about anything). But there’s a years-long history of those demonstrably out-of-place gold stock comments as well as episodic instances of him presuming to instruct me on various things. I do not like being instructed. I’d much rather be insulted than instructed. Ol’ Jack was a good “friend,” but it was time to bid him adieu.
I have not bought or looked at gold miners for quite a while so I have zero opinion on your suggestions. I’d just remind everyone to check how much future production each miner has sold forward to satisfy their lenders.
Amazing, write the word “gold” and the comments section explodes. If Trump keeps gold plating everything in DC, the current price might be a bargain. Forget “flag blue”, loot Fort Knox and make the bottom of the reflecting pool “sun gold”. Then Trump could post an AI video of him and George walking upon the golden waters making the ‘human printer’ drop to her knees in a swoon.