When you look in the mirror, is that you? Are you like a hedge fund in panic mode, selling everything just to raise cash? Do you fit into this “sell-sell-sell” model? Don’t feel bad if this is what you have to do. Just be honest with yourself.

Meanwhile, the US — and the world, really — has been dealing with a credit crisis for over a year. This makes me wonder if there is a turnaround coming sooner, rather than later. I don’t know that. I don’t have a copy of the Financial Times from next March. So I just cannot say if we are closer to the bottom than to the top.

How soon do you need your funds? If you need cash within the next 12-24 months to pay bills like those for college tuition or a nursing home for a relative, then maybe you ought to just take the hit and get out of the market now. There’s no shame in being safe. Look after your needs.

But do you have a longer horizon? Are your “down” stocks in your IRA or 401(k)? You can’t take it out without penalty until you are 59½ years old. Then consider riding it out. And maybe with these low valuations on most stocks, it’s even time to go shopping — but certainly not blindfolded. Nibble away.

For example, for less than three thin dimes, you can buy a share of a Canadian miner that is the only significant tungsten producer outside of China. For under six bits, you can own shares in another Canadian miner that controls one of the richest deposits of indium ever discovered — and according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the world will “run out” of indium in less than eight years.

**********************************

This New Breakthrough Has Wall Street Whispering…

The “Off Switch” for Cancer That Could Pay You $120,000

After nearly 40 years of research and billions of dollars spent, one small group of scientists may have just figured out how to “turn off” cancer…

PLUS, a way you could at least triple every dollar invested in this discovery, before the end of this year.

Read on…

**********************************

The World Is on Sale

Let’s look ahead a year or two.

Commodities in general have been plunging in price since early July. The dollar has been strengthening.

Will that continue? Can it continue? Why should the dollar stay strong? Does the number $700 billion mean anything to you? So sure, the strong dollar can continue and commodity prices will stay weak. But at some point, the dollar will start to decline in value. And commodity producers will have to cut back on operations by closing mines and mills and smelters. Then they regain pricing power.

And if the world has the vast recession that many people are forecasting? Then global demand should decline in the near and further future.

But there are 6.5 billion mouths to feed on this planet. The world will still have to produce a lot of materials to satisfy basic demand. That is just built into the equation of human survival. And what will happen to pricing power as some layers of high-cost output go away?

For example, the world petroleum industry will lift over 31 billion barrels of oil this year. Even if world demand dropped by, say, 5% — as if the world airline industry simply vanished — the world would still lift nearly 30 billion barrels. And as the current economic woes cause new projects to slow, annual depletion will overwhelm annual new output from new fields. There will be less oil.

That is, looking ahead, the world may never again exceed the oil output levels that we will have in 2008. Indeed, it will require heroic efforts just to keep global oil output flat in the future.

Energy and resources are getting scarcer and ought to become more valuable going forward. Hey, too bad the world financial system is busted. But that just means that there’s an opportunity to buy good stuff really cheap.

No, I’m not saying that you ought to go out and buy stock with both arms or back up the pickup truck and start shoveling. You need to be very cautious right now. But don’t panic, either.

Sell if you need to sell. Buy if you want to take on the risk. We’re in for some rough economic times. But unless world population starts to die off fast or people develop a taste for living low and being cold a lot, the energy and resource plays are still going to work over the long haul.

Source: When the Rates and Sun Go Down on Wall Street

Pages: 1 2

Pages: 1 2