Tuesday, October 7, 2008

gold and silver up, the dollar down


Right now now whole trading portfolio is cash, some SLV and some GLD (which I bought one dollar too early yesterday, but zero sweats). Regular readers know that the move to cash was made plenty before this final slide happened (to be precise, the major liquidation happened when copper broke $3.10 to the downside). I'm also aware of the risks (according to the goldbug tinfoil hats anyway) of holding GLD instead of real bullion. The ETFs are for trading, and I won't be in them long. The LT port holds the real stuff, FYI.

The above paragraph is not crowing. I've stressed "preservation of capital" on this blog above all other things almost since its conception. Risk is for another day, and so are large positions in equities. Right now the portfolio is balanced so that if GLD and SLV move up it will be because of a dollar drop (i.e. today) and vice versa. It's a hedged position, in other words.

This is not a time for bravery. I'm Mr. Chickensh** right now and I'm happy about it. The bold and valiant Ottoinvestor will show his face again, but not right now.

Be careful out there. The whole point of capital preservation is to have a large attack weapon when the market finally turns. DYODD, dude.

UPDATE: Benny and Hank's T-bill backstop plan seems to be working for the moment. The yield on the 3 month paper is up and as a result gold is $15 off the day's high. I'm not changing the portfolio position, as the last thing to do is to start chasing a market. Repeat: this is NOT about alpha gains.