March Investment Update - 1

part one: an update on market suggestions

part two-a: a digression to why everyone want to know how it's gonna end 

part two-b: Cain and Abel walking into the end

An update on market suggestions:

It's March. Once upon a time there was a great empire, one of the wealthiest in history with its position based on dominance in trading, shipping and of course banking. At its center they often had the most lavish of parties that went for weeks on end with courtesans of all ethnicities and genders. A proud marvel of a city it was. It crumbled as empires always do though more than a few of the wealthiest families that ran it simply moved away and are still with us. The empire left behind what is maybe the most beautiful marker of a civilization mankind has ever made.  It's still here, ever so slowly fading into the sea. Venice, of course - La Serenissima, the Most Serene. Empire. That celebrated New Year's Day the first of March. Bon Cao de Ano.  Happy New Year.

I don't know if our empire now falling will leave anything behind - London first then New York have been its center and the city, NYC...isn't constructed to last. There the whole world was once torn down to be rebuilt every night. Then the city, our empire just starting tearing things down. Until the world said no, as it is now. 

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(Note to anyone perusing: for now, I've none of these things - those who know me know the primary cause. He did actually steal literally every thing. Just suggestions these and no conflicts of interest. For now.)

The bi-montly suggestions of last year are all still valid even now - and yes they have done extremely well. Let's use some graphs. In January of '24 the concept was 'caution' for we were entering the beginning of a sort of end game of this giant bubble-land which would inevitable be reflected in markets, though unhurriedly as... mechanisms were and are in place for money to keep flowing. Today, 14 months later... no fresh money, I would admonish, into so-called risk assets, basically.

In March came Gold. It's still viable though less now as an investment as scenario insurance - note that gold is actually quite a bit less negatively correlated as people might think. And yes, that's the sort of thing that 15 years ago would never have crossed my mind.  But it still works... alas, the 36 % price rise over this past year you cant have anymore. And silver of course, before only a so-so option, has become a real one this year though with attention.: 

 

In May came a rather urgent suggestion to start staggering in the VIX volatility index on future volatility predictions. Again suggested in early December. Hey...sometimes we get luckier than luckier. Again, same advice but with limit/good to cancel orders at well below where the markets are, and smaller amounts (of your overall portfolio) even though...we're still in for a ride. Sorry if I didn't make it clear it was to be done ASAP, to those few I mentioned it to. 

Next, in July, the opposite scenario investment - copper, on dips. Miners on this though, not the metal. A generic ETF will do unless you personally know much more about the who's involved particulalry of course in mid-cap and smaller companies. There should be many ways to play it but here's a simple one to start with: COPP. Or COPX. As suggested then - accumulate on market dips, long hold, scenario insurance, fundamental supply -demand future imbalance. 

 

In early September, the next suggestion - nuclear. Inevitable in most scenarios though how, the kind, the ways to play it can all be relevant. Again, one can use ETF's though individual companies -as in copper - will be funner. Mind: the boat left, as it were, right after so buy now on deep dips and hold long. Example: NUKZ

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In November I was telling a few friends - wise to sell into market rallies and move into risk-off. Nothing panicky - it didn't matter who won though it was clear Trump was to win and the markets would rally transiently a bit more than not. Either party would be forced to expand debt though - the mess is very deep - and thus the bubble melt-up

 would and may still continue before something more... direct. 

In January, as mentioned in the introductory post put up in December...I had intended to suggest, as intoned, Russia in particular and some emerging markets. I didn't know just how difficult that has been made for private, individual citizens. Rather silly,indeed. Other places, secondary, the obvious like Malasia, Vietnam,much of Africa and the like but that should be done, unless you can well study investments beforehand, either by playing them indirectly via larger and medium companies with interests there or again using generic funds - but looking toward funds that track those places and markets directly and dont have, say,10 percent of holdings in one Taiwanese microchip maker. Which turns out not to be an easy or quick deal. I'm studying avenues now and haven't found one promising enough. Hence... the usual watered down etc or mutual would be a good idea - likely only if there's a global breakdown. In March Update - 2 I'll see if I can resolve something more.

(January video clip)

Part Two - a

What's next? Everyone wants to know. 

(Note - Each subject in part 2 a and b will be dived into rather... richly in the coming months)

Well, most people do. Maybe everyone does. Maybe every thing does. At least any thing that's alive (we can worry about distinguishing life, agency and such some other time.) Because..... they already do know. What happens next.  

At least in the now as they say things to themselves - in whatever way they're doing the saying. For us it's a bit like: 'this is going to happen because this is what I infer'. In turn, causalities of the same: 'this is going to happen because this is what he says or they or she, and they are in all cases part of an us as I am, mostly,  in this story - my story, the one I live in - play this role. I'm sure. I'm right. I'm sure I-it-we am right.' 

Of course. No one needs the sort of internal conflict that results in those corticolimbic glucocorticoid freak-outs that can lead quickly to an end via stratified means. All living systems have to believe in their own inferences. It's.... a hit or miss life.

But we h. sapiens sapiens have a sort of constipatory mind, much more than any other thing. Inhibitory, top-down Gaba stuff that.. holds representations in suspence, as it were. Relax, don't do it. Which is very expensive to maintain, that 'stop'. In energy and blood. Our central nervous system results in a ton of complex emergence that no other species, maybe no other living creatures, have. That even determines structure. That lets us make stories. That keep a hunk 'o stuff in the present and suspends a kind of gratification, extending to many effects the cone of the possible past from which we infer this moment and in turn maybe by definition expands the cone of the future, of possibility. We violate time all the time. (We can worry about defining time some other... time.) 

It may be that... our way of shoving things into stories works very well in its way. It allows for us to organize a ton of things, a ton of people. A ton of places. A little like an ant colony or bee hive though let's not exaggerate the compare. But we are biological things tied to the same tendencies you can find in many species, not merely mammals. Stuff deeply coded in topologies from the histonic, so to speak, through genes to...well, all the way up to music. Synchrony. Instincts. A lack of free choice - a lack, not an absence. Survival. Violence. Inferences. Stories beneath stories. Divisions. Modalities.

Everyone knows about the brutality of lions, male, on cubs they did not procreate. Sometimes a few brothers might team up to dominate a pride and territory but most of the time... curtains for the cuties. My-our way or the.... highway. Similar aspects are found in a bundle of bird species, where Tom or Maria, if first hatched, will knock the yet to be or just hatched Paul and-or Janet out the nest. Deconstructed scrambled siblings. Ant food. Mors tua vita mea. But... sometimes it's only facultative, such impulses to siblicide. If mommy sends them a message that everything's cool, then Paul and Janet will have their share, grow up, get degrees (hoho) and maybe all their cousin kids will play together on Thanksgiving.  It's fear, stress responses transmitted, that can click a modal switch on Tom or Maria to Mr and Ms. Hyde. Because- everyone wants to know what's next, how it's going to end. Birds and lions, to.

It's even, siblicide, the first human story of our bible (even though written chronologically later.) Abel murdered by Cain, not incidentally the older sibling murdering the younger (a theme alas... very familiar to me.) Not for Jealousy. But to be certain of the timeless, of God. Because he, to, was one of the first humans living beyond any certain Eden paradise. Every living system has to believe their inferences - consciousness is always a singular expression. So - everyone wants to know how it's going to end. Cain, to. Abel, a bit interestingly, didn't care. Which brings up the idea: it's carried fear that makes everybody want to know how it's going to end. The story. 

We're in a moment, historically... of a sort of Cain and Abel. Of systems that through carried fear... are violently self-referring. In turn... murderous. Like... exhausted M. stem cell mitochondria feeding a condition elsewhere - creating a modal switch in turn changing cellular function and aspects of intra and inter cellular languages. Cancer. From 'part of us' to 'only me, changing purpose. Because even cells want to know how it's going to end. 

There have been 2 aspects, primary, distinguishing this unpleasant time - for the vast majority of people -  in the west: the creation of false scarcity, and: accelerated concentration of resources via finance and financial engineering. Stratified propaganda and predatory policy. 

Part Two - b

walking into an end

One can delineate a beginning, in so far as you can identify any beginning, of this troubled era in the way Asian countries resolved their financial crisis of the late 90's - by giving the middle finger to future dealings with the IMF's draconian loan conditions and creating safety moats around them filled with government bonds, particularly US ones. That in turn resulted in a tsunami of money for the already rich in the west and artificially low inflation and interest rates - in turn leading to speculative frenzy and easy money in the real estate and financial markets among other dis-balances. And massive trade, wealth and income imbalances. It's one reason these years have been termed 'the age of debt'. 

From there anyone can see the series that evolved - the dot.com crash of 2000-2001; the toxic debt derivative crash in 2007-9;  the Greek crises in 2010; the series of colonial and proxy wars and 'colored' revolutions sponsored by the west - the US of course by far most importantly - becoming increasingly costly to life and property to innocents around the world;  the acceleration of concentrated resources going ballistic during and after the lockdowns in the early 20's, ecc.  And how each of these was in turn resolved: More Money, More Debt, More Arms, Fewer Personal Rights, More Bureaucracy, More Policy Geared To The Wealthiest And The Biggest; More Dismantlement Of The State, Less Democracy, More Concentration of Wealth and so on. Socialism, public, for the wealthy; slavery, private, for the rest.

That's the only real elephant in the room that isn't spoken of much: in the West - accelerating its decline - is a very small group of people, mostly involved in the usuary business, most pertaining to a same very small self-identifying group and sharing the same beliefs and culture. Who intend to take....EVERYTHING. It hasn't been merely a my side-my side, your side-your side for decades. It has become directly what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine, from their perspective. 

That's what we all have to fight against, wholeheartedly. That push to elimate everything that was - place, identity, culture - and production as an extension of culture -, idea, voice, family, religion - anything that ties to you and us to something larger than ourselves. That push to eliminate possibilities - possession of everything - that has to be repeated; EVERYTHING - and unsubstantiated ideology to somehow create stories legitimizing it. Immense fear carried within the people and culture of that tiny group trying to organize away even the possibility of fundamental change, of joy. We get lost in diatribes of who belongs in the pool, who gets to swim while they--- steal ownership of the pool, the water, the building. We are divided into story groups, echo chambers easily manipulated to conflict as story meaning while they - commission the stories, own the ink, the paper, the spaces. 

You get the picture, I hope. In a world that currently is plentiful, truely, where everyone should be... without much fear, expanding possibilities, giving and receiving joy. During the lockdowns less than 12 percent of us was enough to provide basic needs for all. Instead.... to make sure of control, we've been pulled into a vortex of fake scarcity where fear dominates and transforms into... canceling anything and anyone who doesn't fit into the stories pre-written. Taking away... the sky. Walking into an ending.

               

Simply put: we have been at war with global finance without knowing it. That is, they have been at war with us. Many have been alas manipulated into stories that are pushing Europe,at least, to more poverty and war. Futility. For those believing themselves somehow part of an...elite: Any difference can be fatal.