Member Info for mogo

yes having fully read your post I see we have similar outlooks.Your mention of the quirks of continental drift/oil reserves I've never thought of before,interesting.Will research that.Using a pyramid of assets I feel has helped me avoid those emotional splurges I used to make in shares.The drain of money into speculators pockets from mine is hopefully stemmed.You don't need or want to hear my losses history though.Shares are not our friends at all,we have to recognise that.Commodities yes but not blindly picking them.The FDI mentioned earlier was just a very small amount.My pyramid only allows small quantities in speculative destinations.Sorry tomo but your remark in the 21.47 post is exactly what I found in the past led to my near-downfall.Yes I believe this stock market push is on a wing and a prayer really,or hot air.I said before I had been an absolute bear for several years.What the US is finding though is that somehow as the treasury bonds or t-bonds interest falls to a record low,the amounts bought continue very high,so they are getting all this money at hardly any cost.They can do that since the dollar is still the world reserve currency,so no austerity there.Yes their housing is in an awful state of perilous near collapse.Even at rock bottom rates.An article read tonight suggests the rate of inflation is a lie-look at the high prices of cotton,sugar,petrol,corn,wheat almost everything going up.If the inflation rate does rise honestly the housing market will totally collapse...

actually got into FDI (diamonds are forever ?), last week,it is well undervalued now,not a ramp DYOR GL.See,tomo I do take risks lol.

...and when I was in here I did quite well,you agree ?

I can only swap about stuff already in,0 excluded.Taking plenty risks now elsewhere,prob. more than you...

my last,correct forecast was for 1000p here by Xmas at a time when it was down at about 700p.Now another one.ASC will be 2000p by next June 2011, lol.

yes good posts here.Some deep thinkers here,but without the slanging matches on other boards,PXS was the worst up to now lol! Anyway,unlike tread I did lose a bit in 2007/8,though luckily half my P/F had been sheltered and still is.I use an "allocation pyramid"- about which you will read a lot about the idea of, on the net so no more there...it at least stops me putting too much into things.Another reason why I've nothing left for here as of now.... Last week's measures- comments ranged from a necessary exercise to a disastrous tragedy,so it will be interesting seeing who is correct.I confess that I have been an out and out gloom merchant on forecasts till recently.In 2009 I disagreed with those who said there wasn't a small boom,and was wrong.I have tended to go with most share commentators this year who have forecast another dip,but that theory is fraying a bit I know.Obviously everything must come sometime if you wait long enough lol.

tomo,etc.Did you notice this is now a £1bn. company.Every time I come here it is more.Unfortunately I have still no cash for this,and it is getting dearer to buy now.As shares rise it is also harder to make money eg from 300p to 400p is a rise of 33% over an 100p jump, but from 1000p to 1100p also 100p jump, is only a rise of 10%.

yes I agree with that.The problem is that economics and business are learned by very few at school.Even our masters are really amateurs,the shadow chancellor says he needs an economics primer.There are several different ideas now running,we cannot know if the one used now is correct until a few years later when it will be too late.Late last night saw a FT headline about millions piling into emerging markets and a bubble might be forming there.Maybe as before you should invest in the contrarian things not the ones ppopular now.ASC doing really well,pity I cant yet afford to come in again.I don't think this is a bubble,in fact probably few even know about it yet!

Friends here-todays' announcements have been tragic for so many.They say nearly 1,000,000 more unemployed.That is just a figure,but imagine each one.Of course we had to do something.Foreigners watch us and they expected something ruthless and were not disappointed.There may be a bonus for us here in share markets,at this expense.Provided of course that these public service people can be re-employed soon.Will they be ? More bubbles have formed.We seem unable to prevent that,and we know they must burst sometime.If we are on band-waggons we hope we can jump off just at the right time.Or some even keep believing "it is different this time".It never is.Boom and bust were never finished.For every winner there must be a victim...

you stuck with this,and are getting your just reward now m8!

Thanks for posts here-should have said that earlier,well you noticed I didn't mention whether I thought gold would rise more,because I don't know.States do hold a lot of gold and it would be possible therefore for them to sell some,and depress the gold price any time.However that doesn't seem sensible at the moment.Yes it could still happen as similarly to the GB incident,govts. don't always do the logical thing...they might also make it illegal to hold gold,as with FDR in the 30's.I do hold gold shares though.Coins carry charges and are difficult to store safely.ETF's even the physical variety have still doubts about their backing and stability.They are really just pieces of paper like fiat currencies.So which gold shares might an investor get ? Be careful to pick a company with lowish gold mining costs,below $700/oz. gold is given by quite a few,which gives a good margin considering gold is now around $1350/oz.That is what I don't like about gold itself,as soon as it falls below where you bought it,you lose.At least with a miner you have that margin of production again.Yes of course there's about 30,000t of gold in the world,in fact more than there is silver they say.Gold scrap is also a good source which might hold the price lower.With miners you also need to watch where the mine is.Country risk.Several countries have quickly nationalised their mines.

we are getting to that range

unfortunately in this life a lot of your experience is as a result of where you were born,to whom,their personalities etc.Of course you can do a great deal later to change that.Each day here,people profit from clever choices in shares.Not all,obviously.What we all bring to this game are different methods and we all experience the ups and downs of luck.Even our masters make these mistakes every day.Very few of them forecast the recent events.In fact,it could be that even fewer have a clear idea where we are heading.A series of bubbles is really all that is going on,with some about to burst and several having already done so.Commodities are mostly now going upwards rapidly again,as they did in 2007.We remember what happened next.Politicians appear powerless to stop this process.In fact they may well be encouraging it.You get the official view in speeches but never the clear aim.Gold has been controlled undoubtedly in the past,for example gold miners were made to hedge gold by buying at certain rates,and storing it.This put a level on gold for years.However now this is being taken off,and gold is rising steeply.There is doubt about the policy of states towards gold.Gold ownership was made illegal by FDR in the 30's.It could be that gold may one day regain its position as the basis for currencies as it once had instead of the dollar.

yes there used to be around 14% mortgages in the 70's and 80's.Inflation which then was getting up towards 8% or so, took the borrowed value downwards provided you had a job with wage rises.Meanwhile your house was worth several times what you paid for it.Economics is the one vital subject hardly ever taught in schools,so thousands of kids go out knowing nothing about balancing a budget,getting a mortgage or saving.Most maybe believe money grows on trees.Years ago if you couldn't afford something you saved for it or did without.Look down the street you see 20-year olds driving big cars,probably not paid for.The cult now is celebrity which is tied up with being rich and famous,not working hard and getting things without slogging for them.In fact many real celebs could tell you about performing at rough clubs and travelling in vans to dirty dressing rooms.That is why the credit card boom happened.Though really the card companies were guilty in encouraging weak willed people to run up debts on lots of cards.I heard how they paid them off,you just borrowed off a new card.On the Property TV shows,you heard people saying they didn't bother with pension contributions-the house gains were their pension.Again we should blame partly these shows for tempting weak people.Now the mess from all that will take decades to clear up if ever.Politicians-so many examples.You got the pre-election booms every 5 years.Then just after the squeezes.We are seeing that now again.Brown is an intelligent man.He knew fine that no more boom and bust remark was rubbish,it was just electioneering.Many politicians are prepared to bring us down if it gets them back in.

seems these days to be finding a new steady area around 1100p...

one way of imagining how the future might take shape ,is to state the situation then, and work backwards from it.Right -now imagine a future with nearly full employment,little structural debt-there would always be remaining debt though of course,a normal house market,normal prices,inflation moderate,interest rates reasonable,and a stable stock market.The ability for hard working people to save and be given a reasonable standard of living pension from that.Now try to work out- 1. how many years from now it could happen like that ? 2. how all of that was achieved ? I couldn't do it. The UK did have most of that -say around the year 2003.However of course some now say the seeds of this mess were being sown then,banks were already speculating and making fortunes,while being allowed lax rules of operation.I was visiting friends with young children the other day,while there I was imagining how their lives might be blighted by this disaster as they grew up.Little will they know what it will be like.I don't think I'm being pessimistic either.I believe many are about to have their lives ruined.Yes their whole lives,or in the case of the older ones, what is left of it.

what you see now is the FTSE-100 and S&P rising again to unsustainable levels.A tipster in a share mag. last week who has tipped the FTSE-100 4 times this year to fall,is now forecasting a rise to 6100,though after that a steep fall.Another says if will halve in the next year.Both could easily happen.Sugar,corn,oil,gold,you name it they are all rising now.The BOE and Fed may feel up to now they have contained inflation by keeping bank rates low,having unemployment and ignoring that the RPI is about 3% and RPI 5% but bond rates are way down,but rising food and oil prices must have an effect.In America with 9.5% unemployment they are scared stiff of a big inflation rise,as most mortgages bought a few years ago at too large loan rates are unpayable if mortgage rates go much higher.So a further housing crisis looms,people with negative equity,mortgage defaults,repossessions.That is added to the pensions bust we spoke about earlier,where bonds bought to support pensions have too low interest rates to sustain them.Really though a lot of sub-prime has been taken in by the banks and supported by the state,there is a lot more out there waiting to be unafforded by the poorly off people who bought them at 10 or more times their annual income.Back to commodities-there has to be a slump there sometime,as high prices cannot be continued.It happened with oil in 2008,yes the long term trend is up but this bubble will burst.Even gold might go down a bit,but not so much as it is high due to other reasons like the fact as you say that US is in hock to China and can't pay these debts off any century soon...

has been for years the govt has been controlling the economy using interest rates-put them up to squeeze taxpayers and cut excesses,lower them to encourage more growth and lending.Now we have interest rates near zero,nothing further can be done to encourage growth using interest rates.Yes you could imagine a negative interest rate but the govt. would have to charge people to put money in banks! They would just hide it under the bed lol.So they have tried Keynesian methods.Print money and spend it.However the banks just stuffed the govt. money in the vaults,without lending much to businesses.Also people now buy gold or refuse to spend so much for security.So the economy is frozen solid in stagnation.Yes a lot of money was thrown by the previous govt. at places like hospitals and schools.That is why the new govt. wants to have austerity.However of course that might slow the economy even more...

It gers worse- 1. there was a report sayiing that the US Treasury requires pension funds to buy Treasuries at the present lower interest rates.However these of course give less yield than the pension funds had budgeted for so these funds will soon not be able to cover the pensions from lack of income. 2. However the US Treasury finds it convenient that the 10-year T-bonds now yield about 2.5% a record low while 90-day Notes yield only 0.2%.Money capital businesses want to hold for short periods in bonds fails to hold it's value the RPI inflation rate now being about 5%.The US Treasury meanwhile can pay back interest for far more bonds since the interest rates are going lower.So no real bar to them printing more bonds. 3. The gold at the US Depository,at Fort Knox-remember Goldfinger ? has not been officially valued/audited since 1953.They do not officially know how much there is.

off topic-I see how we got in this pickle after reading part of a book and seeing an article on gold etc. about this.Please bear with me it gets more topical later.Originally people had nowhere to store gold bars so they got moneylenders to do it for them,in exchange for some of the gold,but before paper money was invented.The lender gave them a piece of paper called a "promise to pay in gold" in exchange.So they realised they'd still to go and fetch their gold from the lender so some got lazy and decided just to use the promises to pay instead.These became cash notes while the lenders became banks.Now the trouble begins.Some lenders/bankers noticed they didn't need to keep all the gold ready to swap back for the notes so they decided to risk using some of the peoples gold for other things while not being needed by them.Later they risked more.They kept LESS gold on the bank premises than was covered by notes/promises to pay.After many years most banks had less than a tenth the gold in the vaults than the number of notes and so this went on,cutting the amounts of gold and allowing notes to increase.It gets worse when you see how they lent money.To begin with they had to issue loan notes and reduce their gold correspondingly for the loan but later that stopped too.They were able by special permission of the Kings to issue far more loan notes than they had gold in the bank.Eventually NO change in the amounts of gold was made on making a loan,and in fact for the first time money was lent having been created out of thin air.This is what happens now.If you take a loan from a bank it isn't at all connected to the cash deposits in the bank,it is just created then loaned.Getting worse-they then began selling loans to others at a profit.The bank crashes in 2008 were caused by this being done with mortgage loans which could never be paid back from poor peoples' mortgages,sold many times until they were totally lost track of.And these still exist as toxic debts! The banks are now too scared to loan out much to business and have kept most of the govt. handouts from taxpayers.So that is the sad tale how our world economy was sold down the river by the banks...