South America, your 2005 prediction of the US dollar to Euro, it missed by a mile, or 43 cents to be exact. As for the rest of your numbers and your analysis, I doubt they are yours.
His prediction is based on hope of the us failing and nothing else. He can't see the big picture. The US gets clobbered and Europe gets clobbered worse so the money has to go somewhere and considering Europe without drastic economic reform is as hopeless as Brazil being corrupt free. It could happen but then again so could anything but will it? Does the rest of the world hate the US that much that they would sacrafice their own economies to hurt us, maybe but again, I doubt it.
. Nick Leeson Jr. : South America, your 2005 prediction of the US dollar to Euro, it missed by a mile, or 43 cents to be exact. As for the rest of your numbers and your analysis, I doubt they are yours. ******* December 9, 2005 SouthAmerica: I have been right on the US dollar since 1990 when I started writing on this subject. I missed my prediction in 2005, but only on a temporary basis, and I wrote the reasons why my predictions were not on the nose. But I will be right in 2006. Regarding the numbers they are my own analysis, and if you check the numbers from my prediction from last years, I am keeping more or less the same numbers with the exception of the price of Gold that has passed my target price. The only thing that I changed regarding some of last yearâs predictions was the time scope from 3 to 4 years to a 3-year timeframe. But I also included a new prediction for the price of gold for 2006. ******** SouthAmerica: Reply to DavidLynch2000 and to sputdr You guys criticize a lot the other peoplesâ opinions and work, but I donât see you guys making any predictions about anything. Is it because you guys donât have the balls necessary when one has the confidence on their own judgment and capabilities to write the result of these opinions and analysis and then share them with the world? David, based on your comments I assume that you are a trader - and my predictions are really bothering you a lot â and deep inside you know that I am right. It does not matter what you think â with complicated mathematical equations or not â the perfect storm is forming and reality will finally catch up with the value of the US dollar. When this US dollar collapse becomes reality, the less developed countries will be the most devastated by this event, because these countries hold only a small fraction of their reserves in gold or euro. Today over 70 percent of US currency circulates outside the United States. The major holders of this currency are the euro countries, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Singapore. About 75 percent of the US dollars circulating outside the United States are in the hands of these few Asian central banks, and if any one of these countries decides to sell their US dollar monetary reserves to buy gold it will produce a stampede to exit the US dollar, creating a gold and euro buying panic â and we will have a major international monetary crisis in the world. I don't know exactly, when or what will trigger the coming events, since no finance minister or central banker wants to be blamed for launching the world into a major international monetary crisis. But the collapse of the US dollar it is coming before you know it. You can bet on that!!!! .
. December 9, 2005 SouthAmerica: My nieceâs house had been in the market to be sold for the last 12 months with no buyers in sight â and she has been reducing the price a bit at the time. Her house is relatively new â it is a really big and nice house - it is located about 20 minutes from Newport in Rhodes Island and it is close to the ocean. She will put the house back in the market by February of 2006, she does not understand why the house is not being sold, and since it seems that the house is being sold at a reasonable price according to current market values in the area. When she decided to sell the house she thought the house would be sold in no time. ****** From current issue of: Business Week â December 19, 2005 NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY âBubble, Bubble -- Then Troubleâ - Is the chill in once-red-hot Loudoun County, Va., a portent of what's ahead? Psssssfffffft. That's the sound of the air finally leaking from the real estate bubble in Loudoun County, Va. Since 2000 it's been the nation's fastest-growing county, where eager homebuyers always seemed to outnumber happy sellers. Until now. Bob Semmens, a 60-year-old retired pressman, has heard that sound. After he offered up his 3,000-square-foot colonial, with three acres and a swimming pool, in early July for $759,000, he sat back to wait for the frenzied offers. A year before, houses had remained on the market for just 20 days and were snapped up in bidding wars. But "very few people were even coming out to look," Semmens recalls. After four months, he was about to take the house off the market until next spring. But then he struck a deal -- for $620,000, an 18% price cut. Semmens rues his bad timing: "Just at the time I was getting the house on the market, everything really started to slow down." By October, agents had 2,908 existing Loudoun houses on the market, an increase of 127% over a year earlier. The average time on the market had climbed 62%, to 42 days, since the fall of '04. And in just two months, from August to October, the median sales price for houses dropped from $506,100 to $480,000. In kitchens and coffee shops from Purcellville to Leesburg, anxious homeowners swap stories about a market rapidly going soft: The real estate agent who gets 10 to 15 e-mails a day from developers now offering price cuts of $10,000 or more to move new houses. The sign installer who's putting up three "For Sale" signs for every two that he takes down. What's happening in Loudoun is a rapid shift in psychology -- a classic sign of a market turn. The buoyant optimism that fueled speculation and expectations of ever-rising prices is now succumbing to the fear of being left standing when the music stops. Real estate, the hottest play of the century in Loudoun, is rapidly cooling. The same signs of a slowing market can be seen in hot spots across the country, from Boston and Miami to Phoenix, Las Vegas, and San Diego. Nationwide, a leading indicator for housing -- sales that are pending but not completed -- declined 3.2% in October from September, the National Association of Realtors reported on Dec. 6. Mortgage rates, while still low, have edged up almost half a percentage point from a year ago, to 6.26%, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Many other overheated areas could suffer even larger price drops than Loudoun County. Some, like Boston, lack the rapid growth in jobs to support rising prices. In Phoenix, high prices and cheap land have sparked a construction boom that's beginning to deflate the bubble. Other areas, such as Las Vegas and Florida cities like Miami, have seen rampant speculation. Such buying not only drives demand but "feeds the expectations of households that are not speculating," says David Stiff, chief economist of Fiserv CSW Inc., a housing data company. "If a significant portion of demand is speculative, that can evaporate very quickly." FROTH SUBSIDES Speculation is swinging the market in Loudoun as well. Underlying demand is strong, with families flocking in for jobs and well-regarded schools. But the recent froth was churned up by investors convinced that housing supply can't keep up with demand. Easy financing fueled the buying boom: County officials say up to 40% of new mortgages this year were interest-only loans, with low payments enabling borrowers to finance higher bids. Jim Williams, executive vice-president of the Northern Virginia Building Industry Assn., knew the "feeding frenzy" had gotten out of hand when a waiter in a restaurant he frequents confided that he had bought four houses on spec. "I'm sitting looking at him and thinking even with tips...he must be dying on the vine." Now, investors' scramble for the exits is creating problems for owners like Omar Singh, 29, owner of a trucking company in Herndon. His townhouse in Sterling has been on the market for $525,000 since October. He's hoping to hold out without cutting his asking price until April. But, he says, "I might not be able to." That Loudoun could continue to balloon through the 2001 stock collapse, September 11, and 12 Fed rate hikes is a testament to its resilience. Located in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains some 50 miles from Washington, Loudoun has accommodated tract houses and mansions alike without turning into a crowded suburban grid. Now, the stock of houses on the market is at a four-year high. At Metropolitan Title Insurance Agency in Leesburg, closings dropped from 30 in October, 2004, to just 10 in the corresponding month in 2005. Letty Mallery decided to put her historic four-bedroom house in quaint downtown Leesburg on the market in June for $1 million after a nearby home drew a megaprice in April. "The market was very hot," she says. But by the time she and her husband, John, had spruced up the home for sale, "things had cooled off," she said. They dropped the price to $950,000, then to $895,000. The Mallerys already have bought a smaller house near their grandchildren in nearby Berryville. Whatever price the stately 104-year-old house fetches, the couple can console themselves that they bought it for just $76,000 in 1976 as a fixer-upper. Loudoun homeowners who arrived later can take comfort in the area's economic fundamentals. The county is pinning high hopes on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which next year will open a research facility that could attract other bioscience organizations. New hotels and transportation services tied to nearby Dulles International Airport will let more Loudoun residents live near their work. With 10% of the county's workers employed in construction -- vs. 5.3% nationally -- local officials say Loudon must develop jobs that aren't dependent on homebuilding. Loudoun's real estate community insists the market is merely reverting to a more normal state. "We're coming back to more of a balance," says Karen Overheu, a Long & Foster Realtor with listings in Loudoun County. "You don't have to make up your mind [about buying a house] in an hour or risk losing it to someone else. It's a little insane to have it the other way." There's another explanation, says insurance agent Joe Kelly over lunch downtown at the Leesburg Restaurant. "They ran out of stupid people." .
Why don't we leave predicting the future to astrologers? For most people living in the reality is already difficult enough (just witness some of the posts on this board).
. Sputdr: What was your rationale for the fall of the dollar/ euro? ****** December 9, 2005 SouthAmerica: My position is well documented - I wrote many articles about the dollar/euro over the years. I posted some of the articles on this message board - You can read about my rationale on the following thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49981 ******. TrendBert: Why don't we leave predicting the future to astrologers? For most people living in the reality is already difficult enough. ****** SouthAmerica: If you take the time to read some of my old articles you will find out that my predictions regarding the US dollar and the price of gold it came to past. I made the predictions before things happened. In the same way that today I am sticking my neck once again â and most of you think that I am wrong and that I am gloom and doom all over again. So my prediction about the US stock market collapse that I made in late October of 1999 - When I made the stock market prediction in OCT 1999 â I got a lot of emails from people on Wall Street saying that my article was full of gloom and doom, and that I had no idea what I was talking about. A few months later when the US stock market collapsed in 2000 - none of those people send me an email to apologize for their insults. .
Things is, South America, I have a problem with predictions. Go to the economics / investment shelves in a second hand bookstore and you will find rows of books with titles like "Dow at 300.000 within 5 years", "Nasdaq at 12.8 in April 1999", "DAX forever stuck in 1940-1945 trading range"...no doubt big sellers during their days but all forgotten now... The fate off ALL books predicting the future. I am not saying that there are no big problems and even bigger challenges facing the US economy and the economies of many other countries as well. I am not saying that some, many or perhaps all of your predictions will come true at some point in the future. You make some very valuable and wise observations. But the thing is, if you wait long enough anything that is predictable will at some point in time happen. We might even see Chief Chimp GWB joining Al-Qaeda... who knows what the future holds?