Stock Market 2013-14: Bull market or Bubble?

Is the stock market in a bull market or a bubble?

I address this issue in this video (posted March 2013):




I am delighted to tell you that the 4th edition of Stock Investing For Dummies is now available!

Find out more about it by clicking here.

I wish you much prosperity going forward in 2013 and beyond...

Regards,

Paul Mladjenovic, CFP

P.S. Need to make money? Struggling to earn some cash?
Then consider becoming a "Micro-Entrepreneur"! I provide tons of strategies and resources in this new guide...it is coming in April 2013: "Microentrepreneurship For Dummies".

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5 Things Every Investor Should Do Now - Part 5 of 5

This is the final segment of the 5-part series "5 Things Every Investor Should Do Now". This segment was actually done before the November 2012 elections but Hurricane Sandy delayed its posting. Please view it and I hope you share it with others.

The 5-part series is now more important than ever:



To view the previous 4 segments, Go to my youtube channel "paulmlad".

I wish all of you a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Paul Mladjenovic
Ravingcapitalist.com

P.S. Because the economy will get worse and many hazards are coming our way, it is important to be informed and prepared. Get a free subscription to the Prosperity Alert and stay a step ahead.

Get your subscription today at RavingCapitalist.com  (subsribe button is on the left side)

5 Things Every Investor Should Do Now- Part 4 of 5

Investing can be a dicey pursuit (as it has been in recent years). With that, I post this.

This is part 4 of the 5-part series "5 Things Every Investor Should Do Now". Part 5 should be up within the next few weeks:




In the coming weeks you will see an educational program that will reflect this post and help you put into action what the video covers.

Thank you for viewing....I look forward to having you visit again.

In the meanwhile, check out the latest program:

For those that sell ANYTHING.....you know how important marketing & sales are! If you are in a full-time or part-time business, at home or otherwise, then you know that good marketing helps you to make more money. This is why I bring to your attention the 5th edition of my book...


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This program is loaded with powerful resources to help you succeed:

* Zero-Cost Marketing...the 5th edition in PDF format.
* Zero-Cost Marketing...the full 2 1/2 classic audio seminar
* Zero-Cost Marketing...38 videos on the top strategies to do marketing
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* how to use twitter to find new clients...with free strategies and resources
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* How to get popular blogs to market your website, product or service
* How to find an army of people that will market your stuff...no upfront costs!
* ...and much. much more (really!!)...CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS.

Thanks for reading...I wish you continued success!

Regards,
Paul Mladjenovic
author of ZERO-COST MARKETING

P.S. to be alerted to the next issue (or video), follow me at
http://www.twitter.com/paulmlad

5 Things Every Investor Should Do Now; Part 3 of 5

This is part 3 of a 5-part series. You can see parts 1 & 2 at my youtube channel found at
http://www.youtube.com/paulmlad

In part 3, I cover another point that I believe is important not only for investors, but for everyone in our uncertain economic times:





Here are some take-away points for viewers:

1) Get a free subscription to the Prosperity Alert email newsletters. New Subscribers will get
three free reports that you can download instantly:

* Financial & Budgeting Strategies ebook
* Consumer Buyer's Guide to Precious Metals
* 15 Ways to Make Money in Your Spare Time.

You can subscribe by CLICKING HERE.


2) If you prefer to only get the report mentioned in this video, "15 Ways to Make Money in Your Spare Time, then CLICK HERE.


3) For anyone that is in there own business (or will soon start a business), then the best advice you can get is to look into ZERO-COST MARKETING. This landmark marketing program gives you a treasure trove of powerful strategies and resources to help you market your products and services...
even if you have NO money for marketing or advertising.


To keep informed on Zero-Cost Marketing, either become a free subscriber to the Prosperity Alert at the site RavingCapitalist.com or you can also be informed through...


* Twitter.com. You can follow Paul at http://www.twitter.com/paulmlad


* Facebook.com Check out the launch at http://www.facebook.com/paulmlad


* Subscribe to Paul's Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/paulmlad


Don't just wait for the economy to turn around, do something about it!!


4) Launch a fun and profitable business in your spare time! In fact, you can even
MAKE MONEY WITH ME!! That's right...you can become an affiliate with my company,
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To sign up through the affiliate program, go to http://www.ProsperityNetwork.net.


More details will be provided through the newsletter Prosperity Alert.


I wish you a great year...make it great!


Regards,

Paul Mladjenovic
http://RavingCapitalist.com
http://www.ProsperityNetwork.net

P.S. make sure your family and friends are ahead of the curve too. Share this post with them!

Warren Buffett vs Gold and Silver…and the Winner is…

Recently, the folks at Berkshire Hathaway have talked down precious metals. Warren Buffet and Charles Munger (two titans of the stock investing world) had made some unkind remarks about precious metals in general and gold in particular.

I have tremendous respect for them (who doesn’t?) and I think that if the topic is “long-term stock investing” then few (if any) could match the performance they have racked up in recent decades. I wish them continued health and prosperity! But I write this essay for a very specific issue and that is their attitude towards precious metals.

I believe that it is a less than stellar record when you scrutinize it. If you were an investor with them you would obviously be doing it by investing in Berkshire Hathaway, right? Therefore, we could easily construct a scenario where we could have pitted their stock against those barbaric and unproductive metals, gold and silver.

Let’s imagine that you broke up your portfolio into 4 parts and invested equally on the first trading day of 2000 into the following entities;

1) Berkshire Hathaway class A stock
2) Berkshire Hathaway class B stock
3) Gold
4) Silver

How would that type of portfolio performed since the beginning of the millennium?

1. Berkshire Hathaway class A stock started at $54,800.00/share and closed on April 30, 2012 at $120,800.00 for a total percentage gain of 120.44%. Nice!!

2. Berkshire Hathaway class B stock started at $35.40/share and closed on April 30, 2012 at $80.45 for a total percentage gain of 127.90%. Also Nice!! (please note that the stock price quoted here is adjusted for stock splits)

3. Gold started January 2000 at $282.05 (Kitco.com closing price 1/4/2000) and closed on April 30, 2012 at $1,651.25 for a total percentage gain of 485%. Ultra nice!!

4. Silver started January 2000 at $5.30 (Kitco.com closing price 1/4/2000) and closed on April 30, 2012 at $31.20 for a total percentage gain of 488%. Ultra nice again!!

Given the above, one can see easily that the two most popular precious metals outpaced the stalwart Berkshire Hathaway by nearly 4-to-1 over nearly 11 ½ years! Bashing precious metals for being unproductive is certainly uncalled for…especially given that amazing comparison.

If you noticed, I didn’t choose some arbitrary period like a single year or other short-term measurement. As most of you know, Mr. Buffet (to his credit) is a true long-term investor and patience has been his “secret” to success. He typically doesn’t trade stocks or decides to jump in one day and jump out the next. “Buy and hold” for him is not some flashy saying…it is part of a long-term discipline approach to wealth-building.

Therefore, I think the comparison in this essay is valid.

Look…I like stocks and I like precious metals and my Dummies guides on these two topics attest to that. When times are good (I look forward to that), stocks will most likely lead the pack. But when times are as uncertain and as dangerous as they have been (and still are!), you need diversification above and beyond mere paper assets.

There will be plenty of good stocks that should do well during the next few years but I am definitely very bearish on the overall stock market because the massive risks from many venues are still there and in some ways growing more dangerous.

Yes…there will come a day when I am not bullish on gold and silver. However, given that politicians, government bureaucrats and central bankers have not stopped their massive financial and economic mismanagement, that day is still very far away.

------------------------------------

Coming this month to subscribers of the Prosperity Alert the new report "the Precious Metals Consumer's Buying Guide"...free! To get your free subscription, CLICK HERE.

The Silver Reverse Bubble of 2012

Copyright 2012. Paul Mladjenovic. All rights reserved. In late 2008, when silver was massacred in the futures pit and saw its price fall from over $20 to under $10, I told my readers at that time that silver entered into a “reverse bubble”. I know it sounds odd, but let me re-visit the concept. As you know by now, a “bubble” is when an asset reaches an unsustainably high level due to artificially stimulated demand. In 2004, I wrote that housing was entering a historic bubble because government policies such as excessively (artificially) cheap credit inflated the price of real estate to nose-bleed levels. The real estate mania was everywhere in 2004-2006 as buyers were going berserk. At the time, I had done a seminar with my favorite real estate expert (David Corsi…look him up!) entitled “Housing Bubble Profits” and detailed my bearish rationale for why I thought that housing was entering a dangerous phase and that real estate investors and speculators would get hammered. The bottom line is that when an asset (real estate, stocks, whatever) gets bid up to high levels artificially (a level way above its’ true market price), the next step will be a painful plunge. I go into greater detail in prior essays on the anatomy of a bubble. In late 2008, I initially wrote about what I thought was a “reverse bubble” in silver. In other words, artificial selling pushed the price of silver below its true market price. For a brief moment toward the end of 2008, the price of silver on the futures market was actually lower than a silver miner’s cost of mining it. The culprit was excessive shorting on the futures exchange by several large financial institutions. This excessive short selling in silver futures has been painstakingly documented for many years by one of the world’s leading silver analysts, Ted Butler. I consider Ted Butler, David Morgan and Jason Hommel to be the world’s best silver analysts and I highly recommend their research for anyone serious about silver. Whenever an asset’s price is artificially pushed down below its true market price, the resulting move boomerangs to the upside sooner or later (usually sooner). This is essentially a “reverse bubble”. What happened to silver? Silver hit a mind-boggling low of $8.88 (spot price) on November 24, 2008. It then went on a strong rally hitting $48.70 on April 28, 2011. It did touch $49.85 overseas during April 29th. That 29-month rally resulted in a gain of about 461% before a sharp correction in May 2011 took silver to the $30s. As I write this, silver is hovering around $31 and has been consolidating since mid-2011. Massive shorting by a handful of large institutions had again entered the picture. Has silver entered its second “reverse bubble”? Judging by the supply/demand data and market machinations (including excessive shorting in the silver futures market), I believe that the answer is a resounding “YES”. I won’t punish you with the latest data since others do a much better job of analyzing and presenting it (see the latest research from Ted Butler and David Morgan…again, look them up!). What will silver’s price look like a year from now…or 29 months from now? I am on record as forecasting that silver will hit $100 during 2012-2013. If silver were to mirror its percentage run from 2008-2011, then you are talking about silver’s price being in the general vicinity of $142. There are some that offer compelling views that silver could easily exceed $200 in the same general time frame. In the coming months, I will be reviewing and discussing silver’s fundamentals in venues such as preciousmetalsinvesting.com and in my free newsletter so I look forward to silver’s next rally. How much longer will a buying opportunity still be available? Given so many positive factors for silver, I think that triple-digit silver is not an “if’…it is a "when". Got silver? --------------------- Paul Mladjenovic is a CFP practitioner, speaker and author of “Precious Metals Investing for Dummies”. He edits the financial newsletter Prosperity Alert (available free at www.RavingCapitalist.com).

5 Things Every Investor Should Do Now - Part 2 of 5

The world is crazy and disruptions are here and more are coming. The series "5 things every investor should do now" is meant to help you get through this unsettling economic period with less pain and more safety than most investors. This is part 2 of this 5-part video series> In the coming issues of the Prosperity Alert, we will provide more alerts, information and resources to help you survive and thrive in these times. Subscribe by clicking here. Coming soon: Updated: Profit from the Commodities Super-Boom! To be alerted, get your free subscription to the Prosperity Alert. New subscribers will get a free ebook on Budgeting & Financial management tips and strategies. I wish you continued success... Regards, Paul Mladjenovic Editor, Prosperity Alert Newsletter