[quote=4plexowner]My current strategy is to stay the hell out of Wall Street’s games and protect my assets – in 2008 that strategy kept me from losing 40-50% in equities while both of my gold coins increased in value by 5%[/quote]
4plexowner – that’s what I did too, and it seems to have worked out pretty well. So, I suggest staying with what’s working. Everyone I know who has played wall street’s games ultimately gets burned. Better to just not be in that game.
One thing I believe is to question what people tell you, particularly thoughts that become conventional wisdom. Seems most people believe that if they have some savings, they should be able to invest and make lots of money all with low risk. Well, I’d question that! How is that possible?
It seems to me it would only be possible if there were more low risk investments that provided great returns then there was available capital to service those investments. But it seems abundantly clear to me that there is far more capital than low risk investments with good returns. Given that simple supply and demand equation, the only way I think that you can move away from a very modest return is to take on more risk. Lots more risk in most cases. And it seems to me that wall street’s biggest game is to sell products with lots of risk as low risk great investments. And indeed that seems to be what happened in recent years that lead to lots of people seeing their portfolios getting clobbered.
Thus, for me it’s much more important to protect my assets than to risk them for a better return. I may not have the excitement of a trade that doubles in value, but I also don’t have all the losses either.
