Mad Money Machine

Comparing Gold ETFs

In the FWIW category, here is a chart comparing the annual performance of select Gold ETFs. What’s up with GTU?     The fund expense ratios (according to morningstar.com except GTU* ) are as follows: GLD: 0.40% IAU: 0.25% GTU: 0.38%* SGOL: 0.39% DGL: .75% UBG: 0.30%

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Permanent Portfolio Discussion Forum

If you have any questions about Harry Browne’s Permanent Portfolio, head over to the Permanent Portfolio Discussion Forum that CraigR just started over at CrawlingRoad.com. Experts there have studied it from all angles and can help you get it implemented yourself. And here’s the book you need to read:

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Permanent Portfolio to Perfect Portfolio?

Harry Browne’s Permanent Portfolio is so simple. Split your investments into equal parts stocks, bonds, cash, and gold. Is it too simple? Can it be improved yet remain simple? I used Simba’s spreadsheet (from Bogleheads.org) to back-test some alternatives from 1972 through 2009. First, the original portfolio: Stocks: VTSMX (Total US Stock Market) Bonds: VUSTX […]

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Longer Term Look at Gold in a Portfolio

The previous post looked at the effect of gold in a portfolio for the 10-year period 1990-2009. Some may say that 10 years is not statistically long enough to be meaningful. So in this post I take a look at the 38 years from 1972 through 2009. To start, I selected a widely-followed portfolio of […]

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Portfolios: Gold or No Gold?

Should a portfolio own gold? I am on the quest to obtain the definitive answer to that question. Here are the results of one exercise in which I take a model Vanguard portfolio and compare it with the same portfolio with a 25% allocation to gold for the time period 1999 through 2009. Here is […]

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Investments for Inflationary Times (to Come?)

The Austrian economists anticipated the present crisis. Should we listen to them when it comes to their predictions about what comes next? In one voice they are saying we will experience inflation unlike we’ve seen in the USA in over 100 years. Inflation is defined as the increase in the supply of money and credit. […]

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Can the Free Market Work in the USA?

Let’s say we suddenly start doing everything right according to the Austrian economics playbook. We go on the gold standard and abolish the Federal Reserve. We drastically cut back federal government spending, including all bailouts. We pull back from all overseas engagements. Would it work? Meaning, would we end up more prosperous in the long […]

Tags: gold austrian economics

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Have We Really Lost Wealth?

With the stock market down some 40% last year, many people are asking, "Where did the money go?" Sure there are some stock market losers. But remember the winners, those who sold their stocks in October 2007? They got their money. Remember also that for every share of stock sold, there was a share of […]

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HOPE CHANGE MADMONEYMACHINE.COM

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Lord of the Rings

We are in the middle of watching the entirety of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, super-duper extended director’s ultra specuatcular release. Nine hours of DVD bliss. Watching all of those dark battle scenes, sword swing after sword swing accompanied by those “schwiing” and “chiing” sounds, then arrow piercing’s thwoosh. Hours later the big screen […]

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Another show to hear

Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital does a weekly show (on shortwave radio or something, but anyway). The one he did on Wednesday the 24th is a must listen. He tells it like it is. For example, “It’s not the tax payers who are on the hook for any bailout: nobody is talking about raising […]

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