Quote from Mike Stone:
Hi folks, my first post and I need help structuring my portfolio for long term security. I am completely confused about what is safe and if we face inflation or deflation when I read the financial press. I have several million I want to park long term with security as the top priority.
I am told treasuries may default, property may deflate, gold may be confiscated, banks may fail etc. Any way round this horrible mess?
Many thanks for any help. My reason for posting here is I am learning to trade basically because I am thinking that perhaps there is no long term security and mobility of cash is the best option. However that in itself brings risks outside of trading performance like if the broker fails or the exchange is attacked by terrorists.
I am totally confused about how to build a safe long term strategy but thankfully my swing trading is coming on well.
In any econominc process, there is one "most" advantageous box.
As you look at the cradle to grave line up of boxes , you will notice the one that deals with the shift from buyer to seller. One box is a buyer--seller box.
Take leveraged postions in these opportunities.
Start with the essentials: steel, oil, cement and aluminum.
Here is a mundane example of the buyer seller box.
To make 2 tons of cement; it takes one ton of CO-2.
Notice that CO -2 is a buyers item. One aspect of it is that the cost is a negative value. It is nice to have raw materials supplied to you where the supplier pays you too.
Cement is a useful raw ingredient that has many applications. Traditional cement makers do not have the advantages you have. They have to ship long distances to compete with you. You have all local materials to deal with on both sides of the box.
Your job is to deploy capital that you get in your account through continued extraction from huge pools. Keep using capital to make capital through price change which happens under all economic conditions.
Continually sweep some capital into buyer-seller boxes and store the ouput during declining prices and sell the output during rising prices.
Capital processes into broadly used storable products is a classic "retention of true value" mechanisim.
A way to understand this better is to look at the few who are doing this in the world today.
Obviously the jumbo pac on this involves all four concurrently.
Most people will pass on these types of ideas.
Most people pass on optimizing taking the market's offer, too.
"Fascinating" is a tough job, but someone has to do it.
I thought it would be nice to at least have one "sage" input for you.
I don't keep money. I apply it to problems.
Getting money is simply opening a pipeline.
Problems come to you to be solved. Apply money. Make more money.
It is a loop.
Notice how I changed your stated problem to reality. By changing a problem to some extent, it becomes a different problem.
The unique and terrific problem you can notice in this exposition is that you have one never ending terrific problem. Finding buyer-- seller boxes.
The sub problem is injecting new thinking into the box. Often it is technological. Fortunately, all such problems boil down to two things: time and size.