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Return of Capital is more important than Return on Capital
By admin | July 9, 2008
I’ve said it before, but it can’t hurt to repeat. The return of your capital is more important than the return on your capital.
Before, I’ve used this cliche more in terms of avoiding investment scams. Today, I’m using it to refer to the stock market in general. We are now in a bear market. Actually, we’ve been in a bear market for several years, but people are only just waking up to the fact. The US economic and fiscal environment continues to deteriorate. Most stocks are going down.
I believe that commodities will continue their overall upward trend, but that doesn’t mean that prices won’t fluctuate in the short term. My friends at GATA believe the gold price is being surpressed by the US treasury – they may well be right. Certainly some ETFs are becoming rather too influential in the gold market for my liking. As commodity prices fluctuate, shares that rely on them are taking a beating.
The market, remember, is not logical. It depends on short term emotions and is driven by derivatives which can cause havoc based on even minor price fluctuations. Therefore, keeping your money in the markets is risky at the moment – really only for the brave!
At the moment I’m going for long term commodity plays. Some of you know I’m very keen on Paraguay and Brazil in this regard. Paraguay is a difficult market to get into, but one with lots of long term growth potential. Brazil is perhaps easier to understand, has lots of natural resources, but is a roller-coaster right now, too.
My personal inclination is to keep most of your assets right now in solid, long term investments like gold and real estate. In terms of gold, buy physical gold if you can, rather than ETFs. It’s harder to buy and sell, but worth the effort in terms of security. A nice watertight set-up is a Panama anonymous corporation owned by a Private Foundation, with a bank account and safe deposit box in a European bank, and you buy the gold coins and hold them there in Europe. This set up costs less than you might imagine.
Needless to say, avoid banks like UBS which are in big trouble at the moment (derivatives exposure, plus the US Justice Department is trying to get the IRS access to information on UBS account holders in Switzerland) If you need referrals to European banks, feel free to contact my office.
People will always need places to live and land to grow food, too. Foreign real estate is a secure, confidential and non-reportable investment.
Well that’s all my musings for today. Keep in touch and don’t forget to check out today’s blog entry on Big Brother and Uncle Sam by Frank Suess and Scott Schramber at http://www.qwealthreport.com/blog.php?Blog_Id=43
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Topics: Banks and banking offshore, Investing in precious metals | No Comments »
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