Like after 3 lower highs you don't trend change down, here? Come on! After the next higher low there'll be another lower high you can get out on, then it will starting breaching lower so if you don't see that the trend has changed buying and holding futures is a disastrous strategy if it's at the wrong time, like it is now.
I think you should invest in non-dividend paying stocks. I, however, will not do that. Theory predicts, reality contradicts.
Thanks for the advice dude. I mean it. Now get off my nuts. You can stick to your algorithm thing or whatever it is you do. And I'll do my trading. I apologize if I hurt your feelings earlier, no disrespect!
We are on the same page. I now realize I misled you when I wrote: As a capitalist I love the U.S. version and Crony Capitalism. As a consumer, I hate it. The proper role of government, in my very humble opinion, is to protect free enterprise from us capitalists. In that respect the U.S. has failed mightily. I was intending to refer to a generic capitalist in the figurative sense, not myself personally, though I am capitalist in philosophy. From my view point I do understand the crony capitalist and that form of capitalism. It is their job after all to accumulate capital and the crony capitalists will use pretty much any means they can get away with to do so. But personally I think the smartest capitalists are those who recognize that capitalists and capitalism profit best in the long run when everyone does well, including their customers. I am an advocate for restrained capitalism where capital and the means of production are in private hands; not wherever possible, but rather wherever a serious conflict of interest is not created and wherever having capital in private hands increases, not decreases, competition. I like the kind of capitalism where the government plays the role of referee and protects free enterprise from the otherwise would be crony capitalists. I am not an advocate of crony capitalism, and I agree wholeheartedly with your point that: "the extent to which this once great nation has sold itself to every special interest is disgusting. "
If you read the article you can see that Buffet concedes that -- but the S&P 500 is up even more. So far the best thing I ever did financially was buy some gold in the $320 - $400 range and just sit on it. Yes, gold is an unproductive asset. It's not farmland and it's not a dividend paying stock. So what? Gold is just money. Nobody claims that it's anything more than that, although there are others who claim that it's less. When I see my own country as well as Japan and nearly every European country running astounding, mind bending deficits I think gold is still a good thing to own. If the world's governments ever start managing their fiat currencies responsibly I'll be happy to move into other assets.
Very realistic way to view gold. Not the best thing since sliced bread but surely a valuable asset when the presses are printing three shifts and weekends worldwide. Let us not forget that the ECB did exactly what they insisted they would not do -- they blew out their balance sheet in December to the tune of 600 Billion plus to lend to the banks.
I have no idea what "Sandbox part II" means. I bought gold because it was cheap, the deficits were already about $400 billion a year, and I figured that with the ongoing wars and the baby boomers retiring the deficits would only go up. I didn't have the prescience to predict the housing bust, which of course had the effect of making the deficits even higher.