Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

EdGasketTheSecond

Well we don't get paid but we still contribute to this forum. Why are you so cynical? Check out what they have to say and make your own mind up; I'm not here to defend what they do.

masonic

What reasons beyond altruism could there be for someone heavily invested in gold and silver to evangelically promote others to invest? One possibility springs immediately to mind.

Thrugelmir

EdGasketTheSecond said:

Well we don't get paid but we still contribute to this forum. Why are you so cynical? Check out what they have to say and make your own mind up; I'm not here to defend what they do.

Why am I cynical? Because over the years I've worked for and encountered some ruthless and  despicable business people.  Never take people at face value. Acting isn't confined to stage and films. 

Snakes_Belly

I think that I am going to sit it out. I have seen it all before, the crash in October 1987. That was bad, Then the financial crisis of 2008. Best time to buy.   You will not know when you hit the bottom. Buy small tranches as the market is dropping. It costs in fees but it averages out the price.

bowlhead99

EdGasketTheSecond said:

Thrugelmir said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

Yes your loss; that's too bad.

I realise he has his own interests in gold but I don't think that is his primary driver in making the videos or that the information is skewed but if you don't want to watch you will never know. Mike Maloney has lectured all over the world. You know a lot bowlhead99 but you could still learn more from Mike, Peter Schiff, and George Gammon, who I'd say know a lot more than you.

If an idea is highly profitable. Why commercialise it. Better to keep it to oneself. 

That depends if your only motivation is greed.

His motivators are greed and ego. It's not altruism. The guy is a self-described 'serial entrepreneur' who has been writing sales pitches since he started a sales firm which he named after himself, thirty years ago. Getting you to believe in his narrative, so you will imagine how great it will be to buy the things he sells, is his stock in trade. 

These days he owns a bullion dealership with an 'education' blog - the marketing engine for the dealership. The customer support pages on his bullion sales website contain such heavily-loaded 'frequently asked questions' as:

    Q: Will you buy back my bullion if the market price increases dramatically?

    A: Absolutely. A dealer's job is to buy from and sell to the public.

That's about as thinly-veiled a piece of marketing as they come. His whole schtick is getting you to believe he is helping you, when actually he is trying to make a sale. It's as if they had said Q: if I use your service to save my family from financial disaster and get rich (gold rich, not fiat currency rich), will I be awesome? A: yes you will!

According to his bio, the reason he is doing all this is because he met a famous author [sidebar: this was Kiyosaki, who had got rich and famous by writing a book Rich Dad Poor Dad, which he described in interviews as an advertisement for his higher-priced seminars, which he then franchised out, which were the subject of a class action lawsuit for providing little value and in turn being advertisements for even higher-priced seminars of little value and providing advice of dubious legality; after screwing over his partners out of their share of revenues for setting up various events they succesfully sued him for tens of millions which bankrupted Rich Global LLC, though he still had a separate entity which owned the brand...]    This author encouraged him to also write a book and make money from seminars.

The spin on this is that the reason to write the book was to, "share his understanding of monetary history, economics, and recurring financial cycles with others, so that they, too, would have the ability to secure their wealth and their families' futures against the increasingly unstable stock markets and financial system."

It could be that he knows a lot more than me about economics, but it is more likely that this 'biographical anecdote' is an incredibly thinly-veiled piece of advertising copy to accompany a book launch - a book to play on peoples fears and encourage them to believe in the doomsday scenario, which is an easy narrative in 2005 when the 78% fall in the Nasdaq ending three years prior is fresh in everyone's memories. 

Wouldn't it be great if we too could learn stuff from this kind and generous educator to secure our family's future against unstable stock markets... The book's only $20... I must get it...  Oh wow the book talks about how gold is literally the best thing to secure your future, and its all the author invests in... So I'm looking for how to buy gold and silver for physical delivery or inside a tax-protected account. I wonder where I will find a trustworthy gold and silver dealer who can offer that...
... Oh wow that's handy, the author of this book who sounds like a great and trustworthy person (after all, he did give me that education about world history and a pop version of economics that explained how markets were doomed and how I can protect my family with gold and silver), he recommends this particular bullion dealer as being a company that can offer just the service I am looking for that he has educated me to want.

I am not surprised he plays up his connection with the Rich Dad guy. He is doing exactly the same thing - a book and accompanying seminar which start to get a cult-like following while making a bit of money but are really teasers for the actual product. If you are a serial sales guy you will realise that in the 2010-2020 era people no longer want to read books and go to seminars to pick up a superficial understanding of your version of how the world works - they want video content and the same info split into bite-size chunks. So you get someone to create animations and infographics over which you can read excerpts of your decade-old book and pay a few special guests, presenting it as great insightful content, though it's really a driver of traffic to your bullion business.

As you get more and more money in the door you can make more and more elaborate videos and spin-off series, 'bonus content - for free!', all to big-up your narrative of gold and silver are best, everything else is too risky, if you want to avert disaster, check out an online bullion sales company near you... here's one!

this was the bio on his gold site:

In 2002 Mike discovered that gold and silver were incredibly undervalued and started buying.
With that newfound understanding, Mike invested his family's wealth 100% in gold and silver, and remains 100% invested in them today.
In 2004, Mike met famed author and financial educator Robert Kiyosaki, of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame. Robert encouraged Mike to share his understanding of monetary history, economics, and recurring financial cycles with others, so that they, too, would have the ability to secure their wealth and their families' futures against the increasingly unstable stock markets and financial system.
In 2005 Mike founded Gold Silver dot com, began writing his book, and started speaking at investment seminars all over the world to audiences as large as 30,000 people.
"For 2,400 years, as people have lost faith in fiat currencies; they have turned to real money in the form of gold and silver," Mike says. "Today, with global debt spiraling and governments increasingly manipulating currencies and taxing savers, the stage is set for a modern 'gold rush' to the safe haven of precious metals just when supplies of those metals are precariously low. The opportunity for those who position themselves in precious metals ahead of the crowd is like none we will see again in our lifetimes."

Gimme a break. This is not an economics expert I can learn a lot from, this is a salesman selling a dream. The 'educate yourself for free' is free but is not a proper education - it is deliberately only one side of the curriculum because the other side of the story would make you doubtful about what he told you. Then after you have 'educated' yourself in what he wants you to hear, you can implement the strategy that he has taught you to want to implement, for $$$ cash money and a 10% bid-offer spread.

His business empire is built entirely on shameless self promotion and making you think he is an expert.  I have no doubt he has what it takes to be a successful salesman. I have no doubt he believes his version of the truth because he has to believe his own hype to help him sell it.

You've bought it hook line and sinker which is why you are looking to exit real investments and move 70% into gold and silver, and gold/silver/hyperinflation are now your permanent narrative on any thread. Fair enough. But don't tell me you are trying to give me an 'education' when you refer me to one of his videos. I am not going to appreciate the level of education I can get from a self-interested cult when I already have a degree in finance, professional qualifications, deep knowledge of investment theory and practice, twenty years of experience dealing with client CFOs and CEOs, directing businesses, etc etc

EdGasketTheSecond

Well Mike Maloney has made no money out of me. The book is actually free for anyone to download in pdf form and I recommend it. Incidently it has 4.2 stars out of 5 on Goodreads from 204 ratings. To suggest the whole thing is a sales pitch is rather unfair and unjustified.

Sure Kiyosaki is a controversial figure; point taken.

However Mile's videos are hugely educational and obviously took some considerable time, money and effort to put together. There is no charge for these, no course is being sold, they are completely free; there is no obligation to buy anything from him; he never asks you to buy anything, only to download the book which is free.

He is not a lone voice. There are plenty of other commentators who can see through the Fed's / US gov'ts game and are calling time.

Ciprico

I really enjoy reading almost all the opinions on here and I think we all know who the heavy lifters are in terms of content....
But really, enough on gold already.....

ColdIron

The Ignore function in the user profile works a treat. I did it a couple of weeks ago

bowlhead99

EdGasketTheSecond said:

The book is actually free for anyone to download in pdf form and I recommend it. Incidently it has 4.2 stars out of 5 on Goodreads from 204 ratings. 

If you give someone a book that costs them nothing, is written entertainingly or accessibly and sounds like it is good information, you can get them to rate you just over four out of five on Goodreads. That's unsurprising, whether the 'sounds like good information' is actually good information or is simply a one-sided spin on the information that serves as a sales pitch for a particular mindset.

Well Mike Maloney has made no money out of me

Sure, but you did buy the mindset and spread the mindset and a video link, virally on social media.  

The marketing videos are paid for by the revenues and dividends from his bullion trading business and literally form part of the blog and 'educational content' for an online gold shop.

When a spammer produces a piece of spam he doesn't expect every reader to become a customer; likewise once he has produced the content, Mike doesn't mind whether someone in the UK who doesn't want to use a US online gold store, sees his videos without buying a product. In this connected world you might still pass a video link on to a friend, colleague, online chum or fellow internet community forum member, who is US based, and might buy a product directly. And even if they don't buy from his site and instead buy from a gold dealer in a neighbouring town, state or country ... every gold coin or bar or online ETF sold to an investor or speculator, is something that helps the price he can sell at. 10% bid offer spread is nicer for him at $1600/oz than at $1500/oz.

So ideally, everyone in the world would see his videos, buy the dream, and adopt the mindset he promotes. It's an online marketing juggernaut funded by the money it attracts

There is no charge for these, no course is being sold, they are completely free; there is no obligation to buy anything from him; he never asks you to buy anything, only to download the book which is free

Correct; see comments above.

To suggest the whole thing is a sales pitch is rather unfair and unjustified

Seriously?? The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. You have read the sales pitch, watched the sales pitch, had 'why it's a sales pitch' explained, and you still can't see it's a sales pitch from someone who self identifies as a "serial entrepreneur who "by age 23 had already founded his first sales firm". 

On the 'about us' page for his online gold shop, "A veritable YouTube sensation, Mike has nearly 50 million views and counting". Yes, and I'll say it again that those videos are commercial not charitable - they promote the concept of buying metals and exiting stocks and distrusting currencies and literally form part of the blog and 'educational content' for an online gold shop...

worldtraveller

CLOSING NUMBERS FROM YESTERDAY:

FTSE 100 @ 5,480 - DOWN 29% FROM PEAK

FTSE 250 @ 14,437 - DOWN 35% FROM PEAK

FTSE ALL SHARE @ 2,999 - DOWN 30% FROM PEAK

DOW JONES @ 21,413 - DOWN 28% FROM PEAK

NASDAQ @ 7,487 - DOWN 24% FROM PEAK