Thanks Bill!

Although its significance could be easily missed, this little pop is a small signpost on the way to the future.

I am a family man; I just bought a big @ss house with an even bigger @ss mortgage so I could move my in-laws in with us because they did not plan for this part of their lives. Me I am 48 with 7 year old and 20 month old girls and a baby boy due any minute now.

After my 20 month old girl was born I started to take this retirement and investing business much more seriously. I moved ALL of my meager $50k 401 k into PM funds (2/3's) and oil funds(1/3). My wifes retirement (she's in a public 403 b with no choices) I moved in & out of equity funds here and there over the last year but as of now, the end of January she is 2/3's in cash and 1/3 is sucker paper, bonds. Sitting out this market is hard to do but you cannot move funds in and out of these things quick enough when things start to go south.

Financially this has been one of the toughest years in our lives. Not that because we're not solvent but because I am trying to make up for 20 years of lost time where I did not pay attention to finances.

And the even tougher part is realizing that you have been quite wrong for along time but you are about to be right, and you are finally getting to this point at a time when World Finance is about to change very very much right before your eyes.

This little pop has great significance in my world, it is like an explosion! The last year I have sat there and wondered is this commodity boom really going to happen? Is there really going to be a global shift of wealth with drastically different types of demand? But you know what, these things are happening before our very eyes.

Wealth will shift, debt will transfer and be inflated away, margin will be called, large caps that have made lots of money while moving their production overseas will next be crying uncle as politicians demand international trade sanctions.

And during the midst of this I am doing what I can to preserve a little of a small family's wealth, buying power and future.

This little "pop" is an explosion that let's me know that I am doing the right thing. I have continued accumulating the right stuff and held my positions. I am trying to preserve my own little family's Capital and Social Equity.

I may be saying too much here however we are small beans when you consider at times people on this blog say that it probably is not good to take a position in such and such unless you have $1oo or 200K to risk.

It is not a small "pop" after all but rather a huge explosion.

Bill: Thank you for calling this pop! Thanks for all that you do. This isn't investing and finance, short and longs, swaps and spreads, etc. This is life and trying to preserve it the best that you can in the midst of changing times.

Bill,

Your crystal ball is priceless.

To my eyes this seems like a powerful move in gold because 1) it has moved through several resistance levels without much effort 2) the huge reversal on Wednesday from the predictable selloff on Tuesday.

GE, your bellcow is down nearly 1% today and sitting right on support.

Merrill Lynch, Lehman and Bear Sterns each lost ~2.5% today. Canaries in a coal mine?

The denial stage may be coming to an end. Next week will be very interesting.

I see on Bloomberg now that KKR wants to buy TXU utility in the biggest LBO ever. This is crazy. First, the deal is not done yet. Second, I find it hard to believe any sane regulator will let KKR leverage up their utility, particularly in Texas (Enron fiasco). Are they trying to pump the market on Monday with this leak?

agaunv
I was quite moved by your post and, having been in your place earlier in my life, my hopes and prayers go out to you.
To live a "normal life", today...get a job, marry, have some kids, take care of family and the ones you love...is becoming almost impossible without advanced degrees or employment agreements with HB&B!
This (as all things do) will change, but in the meantime you need to to find a way to get from "here" to "there".
Personally, I don't think you should make a single investment except to balance your accounts.
Not now, and certainly not until you get your house in order.
Pardon me, but I think your first order of business is to pay off any and all CC debt. Then find a comfort zone with your income/mortgage deduction tax benies.
When you say you have a bigass house with bigass mortgage (kids, inlaws, career opportunities) it makes me shudder.
These things are incompatible, and the consequence will undoubtable hit you in the one place that could take you out... not just financially, but, emotionally and in terms of your families confidence in your guidance.
If you can, sell your house ASAP, and move to a place you can afford.
In reading this blog, the one thing that should be loud and clear is: get out of expensive real estate and have no debt.
Sorry, I hate to sound like i am preaching, but your situation scares me.
Now, back to the markets...

hi moab,

looks like the private qeuity bonanza goes into extra innings.

funny that moody´s and s&p have already rated the 16 bilion $ debt as "junk"!

http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/2007/02/next-biggest-buyout-everkkr-may-buy-txu.html

i thought that the equity office/blackstone deal would mark the top....

aguanv-

Let me add a couple of thoughts to the above posts. After reading and briefly reflecting upon your post I am concerned that the risk you are incurring to "catch up" may be WAY more than you are able to withstand. Have you examined the volatility of your portfolio and are you comfortable with large losses? An all commodity portfolio is rolling the dice in my opinion. Did you see the engineered takedown that was done on these markets in Fall? Are routine 20-25% losses acceptable to you and your wife? What if the next takedown signaled the end of the commodity bull? It's possible, and certainly so if the infrastructure build-out experiment of the Chinese blows up in their faces.

Yes, you are 48 and a $50K portfolio puts you right smack dab in the middle (median) of portfolio sizes if I recall the Fed statistics on this accurately. If you have done any projections you know that that amount probably will not grow into a nest egg large enough to sustain a lifestyle that includes a big-a$$ house with a big-a$$ mortgage, the educational needs of 3 children, weddings, cars, etc, etc, even if Social Security is around in some form to supplement it. So you are wise to start thinking of how you are going to make it at age 65. The question is one of means. I concur with rigdon that the ONLY way to get there safely and sanely is to reduce debt and save, save, save. If you are in the market for some guidance might I recommend ESPlanner as a retirement planning tool that will show sustainable consumption and savings patterns necessary for your security? (www.esplanner.com) It was written by Larry Kotlikoff, a BU professor, Fed advisor and co-author of "The Coming Generational Storm". There are other tools out there also but I like and have purchased this particular product.

Perhaps you have considered all this and your choice is to you the only way out. I don't know.

I admire your sense of family obligation and your apparent drive. Let me offer best wishes and good luck.

aguanv

There's some prudent advice in the above postings by Rig & Mark. Reduce debt and save. Easier said than done, but it sounds like you have the potential to achieve that. If you're receiving income on that hopefully highly rated short term paper, it's not "sucker" when everything else goes down. A lot of readers here have cash on the sideline so you're not alone. Everyone has a different situation; you just have to recognize how you fit in, manage risk and focus on your goals.

Regarding Bill and all the community here, no one has all the answers. No one is right 100% of the time. We're all students of the game.

Best of luck. You're not alone, but remember you are the individual responsible for you and your loved ones future.

Bill, loved the site. Glad I stumbled upon it. I am a big fan of gold as well. I know some of the junior gold stocks are doing really well. I am planning to put a large sum of money on GBN. What are the prospects you think of the company during this bull run for gold.

I know by 2009 this company would be at least USD $6-9. That would be a nice return on investment. What do u think/or anyone else here who is following the company longer than I am.

Well I might as well throw my testimonial out there.
It is one of many valley's and a few peaks,,,lol.

I am not complaining, actually I am happy, albeit not secure monitarily by any stretch.

From a high of 300k in late 1999. I managed to play it to approx. 25K today after chasing the rainbows of the time.

Along the way, I helped graduate my daughter from college, got divorced and lost a career(maybe walked away is better term than lost) in Data Processing Management.

However, the single most important decision I made(when I made good money) was to pay off my home, and clear the decks on ALL debt.

Today, I have a part-time job(no stress any more,,,lol) to pay the monthly bills while I try to rebuild a portfolio again 100-300 shares at a time.

I've been looking for a site where I could learn and even contribute something to the discussion.

Guess what? I think I found it here.

tkx Bill and everyone.

The advice to aguanv is sound. Debt is a terrible burden unless it is managed very well. In Florida, due to a constitutional amendment limiting property value taxes for homesteaded properties, we have the conundrum that downsizing our homes may cost us more in increased property taxes than we get out of the downsizing. Very strange.

I recently started trying options. I bought some in the money call options. They were mildly successful. That, is until I bought CWTR April 20's. That was a couple of weeks before they guided lower. The point, though, is that I missed the signs. My wife loves Coldwater Creek stuff. Before Christmas, she was raving about the great sales at Coldwater and was disappointed that so many of the items she liked sold out immediately. I took that as a sign of a booming business and fourth quarter. If I had had my "why is that" financial hat on, I would have asked why they were discounting so heavily. But, I left the hat in the other room.

The lesson learned is that personal experience should be weighed as much as analyst's projections and charts. At least it wasn't a very expensive lesson.

Rick

I ran a scan for companies trading between 5 and 40 whose RSI daily and weekly is below 30 and received 95 hits, of which roughly 50% were little finance co's.
Wow, can you say housing slow down.

It seems that home buyers are getting very stingy.

Thanks everybody for your thoughts and experiences. I have written two other replies long winded and boring and decided not to post, well actually I lost one, darn it!

Bill sorry I crossed the line. ;-) You said it again today "That’s life. The market is life. We are the market."

I will be careful, avoid debt, watch for viable trends, and not become dogmatic about a certain position. Also carefully consider risk but at the same time remember what Mr. Buffett said, "it's ok to put all your eggs in one basket, just guard them like a hawk."

P.S. Comparing the major equity indices to XAU or HUI, who won again today?

Yeah...

Thanks,
SteveM