Saturday, July 13, 2019

The World's Best Kept Investment Secret

                              
                                          Financial Safety Services disclaimer

                                     email: onebornfree at yahoo dot com

Real world fact [1] : [aka "the world's best kept investment secret"]:

No one can consistently and accurately predict "big picture" future economic events and scenarios. No investment advisor, no money manager, no economist, no politician, no fortune teller- not even you :-) [although any one of these, including yourself, might get it right on occasion, purely by chance].

For various underlying, fundamental reasons, the "big picture" financial and economic future must always remain unknown.

An Important Question For You, Dear Reader :


Despite the fact that the economic future cannot be reliably/consistently be predicted by anyone, are you, dear reader, unwittingly trying to predict the economic future via the makeup of your own current savings/investment plans and choices? [or via the choices of your financial planner, investment advisor, or via an economist or related?] If so, then you are unknowingly endangering your long term savings.

Let me try to illustrate my question by examples:

The Real-World, Unknowable Outlook For The Stock Market:

                    Standard & Poor's 500 stock index, 5 year performance [log. scale]

Real World Fact:  If you have most of/all of your savings in stocks, then you are [perhaps unwittingly] predicting the certainty of an economic environment in the course of your lifetime which will increase the value of your savings, when in actual fact there can be no guarantee that that environment will actually occur. Stocks might actually decrease in value relative to everything else over the course of your remaining lifetime!

2] The Real-World, Unknowable Outlook For Gold :


                  10 year Gold bullion $US price per 1 oz. London A.M. fix [log. scale]

Real World Fact: If you have most of/all of your savings in gold/silver bullion, then you are [perhaps unwittingly] predicting the certainty of an economic environment in the course of your lifetime which will increase the value of your savings, when in actual fact there can be no guarantee that that environment will actually occur. Gold and silver etc. might actually all decrease in value relative to everything else over the course of your remaining lifetime!

3] The Real-World, Unknowable Outlook For Cash and Cash Equivalents [TreasuryBonds,Bills etc.]:

                              30 year U.S. Treasury bond interest rates 2000 -2019

Real World Fact: If you have most of/all of your savings in cash and related [eg long term government bonds], then you are [perhaps unwittingly] predicting the certainty of an economic environment in the course of your lifetime which will increase the value of your savings, when in actual fact there can be no guarantee that that environment will actually occur. Cash and related might actually decrease in value relative to everything else over the course of your remaining lifetime!

4] The Real-World, Unknowable,  Outlook For Bitcoin and other Crypto-Currencies:

                                           Bitcoins per $US, 2015-19

Real World Fact: If you have most of/all of your savings in Bitcoin and related, then you are [perhaps unwittingly] predicting the certainty of an economic environment in the course of your lifetime which will increase the value of your savings, when in actual fact there can be no guarantee that that environment will actually occur. Cryptocurrences like Bitcoin might actually decrease in value relative to everything else over the course of your remaining lifetime!

5] The Real-World, Unknowable,  Outlook For Real Estate, Art, Oil, a Private Business  etc. etc.

The exact same principle applies if you have most of your savings/investments tied up in real estate, art, a business, oil, or anything else. As always, the future remains unknown/uncertain. There are [and can be] no guarantees that any of these other investment choices will increase in value relative to everything else over the course of your lifetime!

6] : One More Real World Fact :  

Despite the fact that the big picture economic future must always remain unknown, it is still possible to easily protect the future value of your savings against the ravages of an unknown future.

email: onebornfree at yahoo dot com

                              Extra graphs of possible interest: 

                    Federal Reserve Monetary Base[ MB] 2014-19 [ Log. scale]

                   US Government 3 month Treasury Bill interest rates 1980-2018

                          U.S government gross debt, 1980-2019 [log. scale]


Percentage of US Federal debt held by foreign institutions,1980-2019, 
[log. scale]


             email: onebornfree at yahoo dot com