Tuesday, December 22, 2009

gooooooogle above $600 :-)

folks, here we go! next support/resistance/mental/whatever barrier broken! can anyone tell me, why i have been such a stupid idiot in december 2008 and bought just one single google share (below $300, i think) instead of 10 million shares? my sweet portfolio position is up +72.8% (in €uros, of course).

what abt google's software buddy + its current neighbor in my by decreasing volume sorted portfolio list, microsoft? well, these bill gates guys are up +44,19% since february 2009. pls do not ask, why did i not buy 10m or 5m shares here, i can't remember that either :o)

good luck, my two lovely american software fighters, good luck ;-)

why google + why microsoft? even if there prolly is a bubble in u.s. equities (stocks + bonds!) and even if for €uropeans like me is the weak usd concerning our u.s. investments a huuuuge nightmare as well, there always will be many u.s. companies which are able to compete (and to win) on the international markets, i think ...

i've bought google because i like them a lot + the stock price was IMO cheap + because i use sooo many of their products (picasa, blogger, youtube, adsense, text & tables, gmail, ... and their search engine, of course) + because i like their philosophy of sharing data (pictures, videos, tables, documents,...) all over the world instead of forcing people to use/own their own 'licensed' stuff .... you still remember the discussion in one of demolition man's threads abt advantages in sharing knowledge for free instead of patents & copy rights & private knowledge? that's the age of aquarius, in my opinion :-)

what abt microsoft? well, they are not sexy at all, nobody likes them, and of course, they are still in the age of pisces as their 'licensing' strategy is a complete opposite of google's sharing-for-free principles, but in time i bought it, microsoft was IMO soooo cheap + it was the company with the biggest $$ reserves worldwide! they had more than $20 billion cash in that time, i think ... so i just thought, bill gates will distribute all that cash among the shareholders within the next few days, unfortunately, he didn't

both stocks are up a lot, so from my investing perspective is everything going fine so long :-)
let me google that for you! ... source: http://mactreffmuenchen.wordpress.co...-dich-googeln/

Thursday, December 17, 2009

UNITED STATES of EUROPE

no? not yet? WHY NOT?

hi folks, there was/is a great discussion abt why is €uro/europe not the leader in the financial markets, kylefoley76's original question was: "if the us and the euro's economies are equally strong then why is it that the dollar seems to dictate the price ... i might be wrong but it seems that the dollar dictates the price in eur/usd ... why?"
----------------
my opinion? because europe is just europe and not UNITED STATES OF EUROPE yet ... it is as easy as that!

just imagine an european soccer team of 11 guys fighting against each other instead of fighting against their competitors! which competitors/enemies could such an european team defeat? well, you are right, NONE :o(

we europeans are so brain dead and so fearful, you know? ... it is as easy and as sad as that :-(

hell, i hope at least our children will be smarter than we are ...

ps: just imagine an united €urope with all that western, northern, mid, southern and eastern (with russia, of course!) countries, with all that industry, oil, gas, commodities, education ...

well, let's hope again that at least our children will be smarter than we are :-)

Thursday, December 10, 2009

is there any silver in silver valley (idaho/usa) ???

folks, i'm such a stupid idiot! why did i bought the bankrupt sterling mining clunker stocks 2day? and why not just once but twice? am i completely brain dead? let's hope i'm only a little bit confused and let's try 2 sort my thoughts! if u promise u will not laugh too loud abt me, i will tell u abt my 'stellar' move ... ok, here we go:

do u still know i've bought stocks of 3 silver companies sterling + sns + minco few months ago? well, they still fight in various legal issues on the idaho's sunshine silver mine (opened 1884, fire in 1972 with 91 dead miners, ...) and there are some other (financial) groups trying 2 take over that historic mine also ...

yesterday i got the investor's newsletter from minco telling that minco is the winner and that they will get 100% of sterling's stock for approx $12m. i just checked the sterling's current market capitalization and saw that they are going 2 pay approx 3 to 4 times the current bankruptcy-adjusted stock price ... hmmmmm, u now me already, don't u? yep, i just saw the $$ signs instead any danger and placed a limit order at €0.07 even if the last u.s. price was $0.08 (and €1 = $1.49) just 2 make sure i will get some stocks. well, there was no other buying in germany so i've ordered the next tranche @ €0.06 and seconds later it was in my portfolio as well ... i didn't get suspect at that time as i know the homo sapiens financialis is soooo damned stupid so i just relaxed and dreamt on even more $$ when the u.s. + canadian market opened. i couldn't believe my eyes! sterling fell intraday -18% there and -25% in germany after my initial purchase. later on the u.s. exchange sterling closed fraudulently at break even thx 2 a micro order moving the closing quote from -18% level directly 2 yesterday's closing price. minco? don't ask either ... they are -5.85% today. hell, does nobody understand that they've got the sunshine mine approx for free? well, the time will show if i'm right this time or mr. market instead ... prolly is the sunshine legal case far from the final firm decision now and the folks out there do know that and just me didn't :-(

what is so special abt the silver valley? silver, silver, silver! you know? if u want to, so skip to wikipedia (and come back :), i liked the short information on hecla mining's website much better:

...The Coeur d’Alene Mining District, where Hecla was born 117 years ago, is located in North Idaho’s Silver Valley along US-90, providing very convenient access and infrastructure. This district has produced 1.2 billion ounces of silver in its history - one of the most prolific silver districts in the world. Hecla has a tremendous land position here… about 25 square miles, which is an area roughly the size of Manhattan. On this land position are many historic mines, which in the aggregate have produced about 300 million ounces of silver, or about 25% of the entire historic production of the Silver Valley....

what is my part of silver valley? well, i've accumulated few stocks of:


  • hecla mining - established 1891, announced 2 pay dividends again next year :o), nice website with ticker-like commodity news [current: Every day 400 acres of asphalt roofing are nailed down. (silica, borate, limestone, trona, feldspar, talc, silica sand)]

  • coeur d’alene mines - all silver production outside the silver valley (bolivia, mexico, australia, argentina, ...)

  • u.s. silver - operates the galena + coeur mines, cash costs per 1oz silver in Q3 were $13. folks, they've lost money on balance even at silver price at record highs. oh my dear! my mexican and peruvian producers have cash costs of approx $3 - $6, my base metals producers with silver as by-product abt $1 (e.g. @ scorpio mining ~ my single biggest stock position at the moment) and there was also a company which has reported cash costs for silver of MINUS $5. silver for -5 usd? folks, got it? that's much, much, much better than silver for free! if they sold all their zinc, led, copper, they've made a profit above $5 and still have all that shiny silver on top! ... well, i didn't remember the name of that company, i think it was prolly one from the trio endeavor silver, 1st majestic silver, fortuna silver ... but i could be wrong on that ... you know, i have more than 30 silver companies in my portfolio as i can't store all of them in a single watch list @ tsx website. hell, let's hope the metal prices in Q4 will support u.s. silver a lot + their stock price will skyrocket soon + i will reach the winning zone again (btw, even if the last purchase shows a profit of abt 13% i'm still abt 15% down on u.s. silver)

  • sterling mining - est. 1903, chapter 11 in 2008, bankrupt in 2009

  • sns silver - explorer company, trying 2 bring the historical crescent mine into production

  • minco silver - cayman island based; huuuge fuwan project in china, next sunshine mine owner?

  • formation metals - explorer/junior producer of cobalt in the valley + the Sunshine Precious Metals Refinery owner

  • ??? + many others ???

my conclusions:

  1. the silver valley has still a long way 2 go to reach some extraordinary production + profitability again!

  2. mexico + peru + bolivia seem 2 be a much better silver bet than usa

  3. there will be some significant consolidation of properties / companies / resources in silver valley in the near future

  4. let's visit that historical piece of earth sometime :)

ps: i will update the final status abt the sunshine mine / sterling mining later
pps: do not forget what u have promised above :)


addendum, 1 day later ;o(

oh, my dear! sterling mining is -37.50 % right now ... and has closed at -18.75% with 4 times the usual volume! a huge loss on the 2nd day of my so_sure-$$-investment, isn't it? well, this time was mr. market right and i was wrong :-(


FAQ#1: how does the silver valley looks like? hmmmmm, i will show u how it was 100 years ago, so please use your imagination (or e.g. the google search engine) to find out how it could looks like 2day, ok?

source/copyright: clayton/deer park historical society. btw, the oginal picture was/is here.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

greenpeace action 4 climate

folks, today (= 5.12.) at 5 before 12 there started a greenpeace action for climate ´through' twitter in 80 german cities. all the tweets the folks have posted have been projected on a special wall in the centre of berlin to make the german government aware abt the importance of the copenhagen conference ...

well, i came abt 1 hour later and my tweet was approx the #5,555 ... just now there are abt 13,000 tweets out there ... not sooo many as i have hoped and many of them came later directly from the internet, abt 3 or 4 from myself, of course i'm dissapointed a lot that the people in the streets do not make more preasure on the politicians, i think it is soooooo important this time ....

my message? rettet das klima, nicht die banken! (that means: save the climate, not the banks!)

well, i've posted that message to my twitter followers after coming home as well :-)

=> jaro gruber (jarogru) on Twitter

rettet das klima, nicht die banken! #savetheclimate not the banks! http://twitterwall.greenaction.de/ #copenhagen #greenpeace #thinkgreen

my #2: #copenhagen, please don't kill our future! #savetheclimate #Merkel #greenpeace #greenaction #thinkgreen

my #3: have a good weekend all! hopefully politicians in copenhagen will make our future a lot better! #savetheclimate #eco #earth #greenaction

my #4: RT @greenpeace_de: take action #savetheclimate be part of a global movement!!! http://twitterwall.greenaction.de/

folks, do u think it will help a little?

Saturday, November 28, 2009

what is worse than stock market crash? shopping with children!

oh, my dear! i just wanted to look what types of 13" notebooks are currently in the shop shelves and as we were with wife + children out for lunch in a nearby bavarian restaurant, my daughters came with me ...

well, we got 2 dvd games, 1 camera, 1 flight to new york (sony promotion gift), 5 years extra guarantee on some stupid thing, camera storage chip, car wash, ... of course i've got NO NOTEBOOK and much worse, both children 'need' (new) notebooks as well ... hell, they just want to, isn't it? ... at least there is still s.th. useful as a potential xmas gift left ...

thx goodness, my wife was not with us because she went to the city center ('down town'?) instead ... i tell you, 2 small sweet devils are more then enough for a chap like me ... well, let's hope my wife didn't spent a fortune as well

i just wanna the yesterday's financial markets CRASH (stocks, gold+silver intraday, commodities, €uro, ...) INSTEAD of all these crazy wife + children expenses ... why? it just cost a one-time-tuition-fee of 1,010.93 EUR and nothing more!!!

is there still any hope for me out there? or at least one really hot place in hell otherwise? LOL

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

why + when + how buy GOLD + SILVER?

the original blogpost was 1st posted on informedtrades.com

why + when buy gold?

[quote]: Originally Posted by forexer
But the very fact they don't know how high gold is right now means they don't care and don't want to care.

This is a sad case for them and i don't care either Jaro, will it be wise to invest in gold say 2 ounces of gold at the current price? I think most people wouldn't buy gold now because there is a HIGH chance price will correct. I'm sure influenced by your blogs and i now want to get into that yellow metal. I know gold won't drop too much because it can't. It's one of the safest things to place my cash into. Do you advise me to wait for a better price to buy or what?
Forexer [/quote]

hi forexer,
1st of all, thx for your confidence in my ideas and of course you have 2 decide concerning your own feelings/considerations, but let's philosophize a little bit how could the best possible solution looks like :-)

there are many reasons why 2 invest in gold/silver, so you have to decide what is the most important for you

1) as protection for your existing wealth?
i would suggest 2 start immediately with at least 50% of intended funds and prolly even with 100% of these funds. of course, it is a little bit late as the price is at all-time-high now, but who cares? if you want to make sure you don't like to risk losing your money on hyperinflation, so it still is ok. btw, i think the gold price will not fall below $1,000 in our lifetimes for longer than a week (if at all) and we will begin the year 2010 with a gold price above $1,300. of course, i could be wrong, but if you OWN + HAVE your kruger rand and/or american buffalo (my 2 favorites) and reverse them from one side to the other, u will not be less happy if the paper gold price falls 20 bucks on a 'red ink' day, will u?

2) as alternative 2 keeping monthly surpluses/savings in cash?
the easiest solution - just buy some gold/silver at the end of each month, no matter what the current price is, so you will buy more stuff if the price is low and less when the stuff is expensive ...

3) in order 2 protect yourself against monetary reform and riots in the streets?
buy small silver coins you could exchange for food then (1 oz american eagle, 1 oz canadian maple leaf, ...). why? you will prolly have to survive more than 2 days and as far as i know farmers give no change on kruger rand in war times ...

4) in order 2 make money?
buy silver instead of gold

5) because you like gold?
also easy, just buy GOLD (not GLD!)

6) ???
etc.

i hope it will help u to take the best decision for your specific situation :-),

just my 2 golden cents,
j.

ps: as for me, i've decided 2 place two different bets:

a) in order 2 protect myself + my family against hyperinflation and to make sure we could buy some food if no farmer and no baker accepts paper money, i've accumulated (hopefully enough) 1oz silver coins before the end of the last year .... yeahhhh, my worst-case-scenario-investment is today at least +30% more worth than last year, not bad return on insurance/security policy in a year, isn't it?

b) in order 2 make money i've invested abt 75%-90% of all my available funds in gold + silver + commodity stocks, especially in junior explorer companies ...

pps: do not forget InformedGold

addendum november 18, 2009, few answers 2 questions concerning reason #4 (SILVER)

why silver instead of gold?
i think silver will go much, much, much more up in price than gold. why? many reasons ...
  • mostly all gold ever mined is still there, mostly all silver ever mined is gone => above the ground is silver much more rare than gold
  • the historical gold-silver-ratio is approx 16 : 1, which IMO corresponds also to the geological ratio of these 2 metals in earth. the current ratio is above 60 : 1, those of you who are mathematically skilled (or own a calculator) could easily divide 1,148.05 by 18.82. if silver becomes a monetary metal again we will see the historical ratios again, i think. btw, i've written abt that recently in one of tek's or simit's threads, maybe will s.o. find the link to that posting ...
  • the industrial silver consumption is going to increase (batteries, RFID chips, electricity (esp. solar energy), medicine, ...). what about gold? it just lays useless in bank safes or makes pretty women even prettier ... there was also a posting abt that in some other IT discussion ...
  • if the economy continues to slow down there will be less silver on the market as the most silver mined comes IMO as a by-product from zink, led, copper mines
  • silver is soooo obscene cheap!

how 2 trade silver?

there are plenty of ways ... ETFs, options, futures, CFDs (my choice), warrants, physical/bullion, stocks, ... just choose one which fits 2 your account size and of course 2 your risk tolerance:o). pls do not forget that silver is volatile like hell, last year there were days where silver fell 20% in few minutes, so you shouldn't be over-leveraged in that case! you will find every dirty word i knew in my blog posts about these days and these markets here @ jaro gruber ;-)

btw, i have mostly bad experiences with trading silver (because of its volatility), the last 3 times i tried it i've lost 2-3% per CFD contract (leverage 100:1) as you can read here, than i told very nasty names to myself (stupid idiot was the nicest, i remember) and then i've decided 2 'trade' the IMO soooooo undervalued silver the jim-rogers-way i.e. first i've capitalized my account accordingly 2 survive even a major decline, bought a contract, placed NO STOPS AT ALL and computed that if silver will go up to the level of 17,70 i will make up my 3 former losses, i was so damned right on the market this time, so with the current quote at $18.82 i'm prolly with 10% in the green ink zone (you still have your calculator ready 2 work?)

last but not least, i've sold all my silver ETFs last year (oktober, november?) at a 20% loss and BOUGHT PHYSICAL SILVER + gold/silver stocks instead. why? as far as i know there is just one (!!!) ETF in the whole freaking world where you have the legal right 2 get your silver (run + stored by the ZKB bank in switzerland), in all others you just have some cash settlement + paper legal rights, so you can look for a good lawyer if the ETF is closed / bankrupt / robbed_by_some_new_stimulus_terror_law or the like. well, there is a big difference between OWNING + HAVING the gold/silver on the one side and having just a legal right for s.th. on the other side ...

of course y should also consider companies like goldmoney.com, bullionvault.com, egold.com ...

folks, i don't know how do you feel abt gold/silver bars as they are not really sexy in my opinion, but there are soooo many beautiful gold/silver coins of any size + price out there (you still remember the '100 kg gold coin & me' picture, don't you?). i love to watch them from time to time (like disney's dagobert duck likes to swim in his gold coins swimming-pool) and then i do reverse, watch, pet, compare and of course, weight them (lol)... my favorite is the mexican libertad (beautiful!), but the eagles, maple leafs, britannicas, austria's philharmonicers, australia's lunar series, somalia's wild life, chinese pandas ... and of course my silver companies' stuff (1st majestic silver, nevada pacific gold, scorpio mining, ...) is also pretty like hell :-)

addendum, november 20, 2009, well, if we already know why + when we should consider buying precious metals, let's think abt the 'HOW 2 BUY GOLD' (see original comment):

hi forexer, hi folks,

there was a lot of discusion abt spot vs. ETFs vs. gold vs. futures ...

as far as i understand the gold/silver market, there is no possibility 2 invest in the 'spot' or the like ... it is just the price @ wich some accredited buyers (bullion banks? etc.) are able 2 buy (physical) gold ...

of course there are many derivates (~ finanancial products ~ paper 'assets') which are oriented/based on the spot price:

  • the products/assets offered by fx brokers as mentioned by tek. their relation to the spot price? (1 : 1)
  • CFDs (1 : 1)
  • warrants i.e. calls & puts (1 : x)
  • certificates, the most modern 'invention' (1 : anything)

of course, there are also futures + ETFs + coin dealers + goldmoney.com + informedgold + ??? with slightly different (= higher!) prices. there is also the so called london price fixing (once a day?) where accredited dealers fix the physical gold price in some kind of an auction ...

basically, you just have 2 decide if you want:

I) GOLD

II) a promise of some counterparty 2 pay you the specified amout of money (according 2 gold price development and choosen product) at a moment when you want to sell your 'paper gold' and your counterparty still exists (btw, say hello 2 lehman brothers if you will meet them somewhere on the road!)

if you would prefer II), then you have 2 decide if you want to a paper gold product:

IIa) with leverage (CFDs, futures, margin accounts @fx brokers, warrants, certificates, ...)

IIb) without leverage (certificates, ETFs, ...)

i hope that helps a little bit 2 choose the best shot on gold in your specific situation :-)

addendum, december 1st, 2009

folks, i'm not sure if i should tell you .... well, it seems to be a contra-indicator at least in the short term ...

well, my 60+ years old mum is going 2 buy investment gold tomorrow for the very 1st time ... she has never owned a stock in her life, she never did a different investment than a fixed interest rate account at her local bank office around the corner …. and 2day is she worried abt her savings and wants to move a part of that in gold :-)

hell, do you think it could be that strange taxi driver / shoe cleaner / hair cutter / my mum / etc. CONTRA-INDICATOR?

let's hope that her investment of last resort will be ok ... btw, i do not think gold will fell below $1,000 again, so what? better 2 start now than not at all, what's your opinion?

addendum, december 4, 2009

physical SILVER? just added a link 2 one trustworthy precious metals coin dealer ~ munich based pro aurum's online shop, so we can find gold+silver bullion prices easily here :-)

hi folks, these silver snowball guys are much too expensive ... in germany, we pay a premium between 25%-50% on 1oz silver coins (minting, transport, profit margins,...) depending on availability of that coins + depending on the worries concerning the paper money system (in october 2008 was the premium for very short time even higher than 50%)...

i've paid 4 weeks ago at the precious metals fair €15 ($22.5) per coin and even 2day there are much cheaper coin dealers with prices below $30 out there like e.g. the munich based proaurum with the cheapest silver coin (the austrian 'philharmoniker') selling for 15,52 EUR = 23.26 USD right now :-)

ps: nicht verf. (@ proaurum website) means not available :-(

pps: i would walk into their shop directly, so i wouldn't have 2 pay any shipping costs and on top there is also not these ugly name-address-bank_account_number-issue, you know?

j. (my orig. comment)

addendum, dec 11, 2009: my visit @bullion dealer
folks, my favorite bullion dealer pro aurum moved 2 a new location recently, got an own + in addition also a much, much bigger building, new customer vaults, some kind of small+cheap (but of course interesting) gold+money museum, two pretty assistants at the front desk and much more, but there are still the old well known guys at the dealing desks and there is still that shiny gold + SILVER + platinum + palladium inside ...

yes, there is a lot of physical gold/silver stuff on the market and the people are not buying much ... the shop guys told me that homo sapiens financialis likes to buy in panic, so the shop is usually hopeless full after the prices advanced for a while.

ok, they didn't had all kind of silver coins (e.g. the chinese pandas were sold out), but they had the regular investror's coins like the austrian philharmony ('philharmoniker') or american eagles ... i've bought few philharmonikers at €14.71 incl. 7% VAT (~approx. 21USD) before today's 1.6% downride ... i've just compared the last price yet: €14.50 ==> by dealing without leverage is even a red-ink-day not really bad, it just gives us the huuuuuge opportunity 2 buy physical stuff cheaper! anyway, it is still a little bit cheaper than €15 i've paid in november at the precious metals fair for the (much nicer) austrALian lunar series coins ... and on the other hand significantly more expensive than €11.44 i've paid @ precious metals fair 1 year ago for the mexican libertads and austrian philharmonikers

i've asked also for 10oz silver bars (~19% VAT) and/or for 10oz silver coins (~7% VAT), but for some strange reason they have been more expensive than 10 single 1oz coins, so i've bought more small coins instead... btw, even the 1kg coins/bars are more expensive than the corresponding amount of 1oz coins (~crazy, isn't it?), prolly because of their mass production nature and lower tax rate ...

well, i've bought also a souvenir/talisman for myself: 1g gold bar ... i'm sure you wouldn't call it 'bar' if you would see that tiny piece of yellow metal lost inside the plastic-certificate-case, only pls do not ask abt the premium/spread i've paid according 2 the current gold future quote ... you know, i liked it, it is really nice, it fits into my usual valet, it is not so bulky as my 1oz NevadaPacificGold's silver coin which i've 'carried' with me for the last 2 or 3 years, so what?

hmmmm, as i see right now this new talisman didn't help too much 2day (i hope it will start working next week!) because all precious metals are USD-strength-driven down, down, down .... but look, the base metals + agriculture is up a lot => strange behaviour, isn't it?

well, let's go 2 gym and look at the final market quotes later ;O(

Saturday, November 14, 2009

nobody wants gold! even not for 50 bucks!

folks, i wouldn't believe that s.th. like that is possible! gold is above $1,100 and still nobody wants/needs/knows it?!? is homo sapiens actually soooo stupid?

Mark Dice tries to sell a one ounce pure cold coin for $50 but nobody has a clue how much gold is worth, and nobody wanted it.



what about the gold ever mined? here we go! watch on twitter or put your eyeglasses on and look here:

source: www.DollarDaze.org

folks, you know i'm not a chartist, but if it is true what i see in the picture, then there will not be much more new gold in the future, so (if the demand continues 2 grow) the price wil continue 2 skyrocket! ... let's hope it will be fun for the prepared folks out there :-)

gold + fun? ok, let's move to these nice cartoons :o).

addendum, december 8, 2009: let's laugh abt the 2nd mark dice video!