Blog

March 26, 2001 – Years ago an old stock market pro told me that sometimes the most difficult thing about markets is believing what you are seeing. It is good insight. His point was that because we usually approach markets with preconceived notions about what we expect will happen, when something different happens we consequentlyRead more

March 9, 2001 – It is natural for us humans to search for rules we hope will prove to be unchanging. We want these rules to be unchanging because we hope that they can be used to help explain, or perhaps even predict, an uncertain and unknowable future. For example, waves always break upon rocksRead more

March 5, 2001 – Every once in a while one can almost sense that something is wrong in the financial system. We are at one of those moments. The system everywhere is groaning and quaking under the stress that continues to build. I believe that a financial crisis is in the making. I’ve been alludingRead more

February 12, 2001 – Over the years I have presented in these letters several different, but meaningful, ways to measure Gold’s relative value. Long time readers are aware that my favorite measure is my Fear Index, which by the way has at the end of January reached an all-time low of 0.97%. The average FearRead more

January 29, 2001 – My lead article in Letter No. 276, “The Smoking Gun”, has received a tremendous, positive response. I would like to thank all of you who wrote or emailed to me your kind comments. I would also like to thank those of you – and there were many – who had questionsRead more

January 8, 2001 – On December 3rd, the Sunday Telegraph, which is one of London’s leading newspapers, published an article about my new Internet venture, GoldMoney.com. The article read in part: The oldest medium of exchange moves online …[in January 2001] with the launch of GoldMoney.com, an internet currency provider that will allow users toRead more

December 11, 2000 – The June 1972 break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building in Washington, DC, seemed at the time suspicious to even the casual observer of government intrigue. The five burglars who were arrested had known ties to the government, including links to agencies involved with espionage and so-called ‘dirty tricks’.Read more

Noverm 27, 2000 – Though I have not written about my proprietary Fear Index for awhile, I have not been ignoring this important indicator. I continue to follow its movement from month-to-month very closely, and I recommend that you follow it closely as well. For your convenience, I include the latest monthly value of theRead more

November 13, 2000 – To ask what something is worth is to ask a question that will result in a lot of different answers. After all, we are all aware of the self-evidently truthful adage that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. So something’s worth – its essential value – is determined by eachRead more

October 30, 2000 – Back on August 7th in Letter No. 268 I alerted readers to some of the accounting gimmicks being employed by both Cisco Systems and Microsoft. Since then, various reports about their devious accounting practices have presented a damning picture for both companies. Looking first at Microsoft, a chilling article on OctoberRead more