Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on antique jewelry. (See the Tangibles Investing section.

Precious Metals:

How Will The Rollback Of Dodd-Frank Affect Gold Price?

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Risk Of Lower Lows In Gold Price Remains Prior To Spectacular Rally To Follow

Economy & Finance:

Fed’s Kaplan: ‘We no longer need to be stimulating the US economy’. JWR’s Comments: Yes, we can plan on higher interest rates. Plan accordingly. Avoid installment debt, folks! Pay off your credit cards, and buy only used cars and trucks, with cash.

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Next, at Wolf Street: 438 Stocks on the NYSE Have Already Plunged 40%-94% from 52-Week Highs

Commodities:

7% Drop In Oil Makes Difficult But Not Impossible Environment For Gold – Analysts

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Morning Market Review for Nov. 23, 2018: Egypt deal could lure more buyers to U.S. wheat.

Cryptos & Forex:

The U.S. stock and Comex markets have been closed for the past several days, but the cryptos markets never sleep. When I checked on Sunday, Bitcoin was down for the third day in succession, to just $3,511 USD. The notional market capitalization of BTC dropped from $333 billion last November to around $70 billion, as of Sunday. The Saturday night/Sunday morning drop was 12%, in just 24 hours!  Nearly all other cryptos declined, in symphony.

I previously second-guessed myself, but I’m now so glad that I spent nearly all of my Bitcoin holdings back between January and March of 2018–when 1 BTC equated to between $7,000 and $8,500.  I parlayed that Bitcoin into tangibles–mainly AR lowers, complete uppers, and magazines. At least I know that there is a real floor to the trading value of those tangibles. But as for Bitcoin? I don’t think there is any reliable floor!

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Dollar posts largest weekly gain in one month as oil slumps

Tangibles Investing:

I’ve mentioned investing in antique jewelry just a time or two in this column. But I’ve never gone into any detail about where and how to find antique jewelry at reasonable prices.  One possibility is searching through boxes of cheap “costume” (replica) jewelry at thrift stores and at garage/yard sales.  If you study what is genuine, then you can develop what is called “a good eye.”  With such knowledge you can spot items of genuine jewelry that have become mixed in with boxes of cheesy costume jewelry.

In my late wife’s experience, here is what to do if you do spot such an item: Instead of asking the seller to price of that particular item, ask: “How much for the whole box?” Odds are, they’ll say something like $20. Then, after getting that box home, you should go through it in detail.  If one item of real jewelry slipped in, then it is likely that you will find one or two more.  We’ve found lots of interesting genuine jewelry, some of which was 14 to 18 Karat gold.  We’ve also found a few genuine gemstones, some .900 fine silver Masonic jewelry (watch fobs and tie tacks), and a strand of genuine pre-1900 Indian trade beads. After extractng any such treasures, the rest of it can then all be sold as one lot on eBay, for nearly what you had paid for everything. The genuine items can be set aside as keepers, at very low cost.

Provisos:

SurvivalBlog and its Editors are not paid investment counselors or advisers. Please see our Provisos page for our detailed disclaimers.

News Tips:

Please send your economics and investing news tips to JWR. (Either via e-mail of via our Contact form.) These are often especially relevant, because they come from folks who particularly watch individual markets. And due to their diligence and focus, we benefit from fresh “on target” investing news. We often get the scoop on economic and investing news that is probably ignored (or reported late) by mainstream American news outlets. Thanks!