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 SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, JWR. Today’s focus is on the importance of buying home vaults. (See the Tangibles Investing section.)

Precious Metals:

Gold Stocks Remain In A Downtrend ^[1]

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Bubba Horwitz: Gold and Silver 2019 – What to Expect ^[2]

Investor & Consumer Psychology:

Here is an interesting recent piece over at Seeking Alpha, written by Larry Hall: Investor Psychology ^[3]. Here is a pericope from Hall’s article: “Established economic and financial theory posits that individuals are well-informed and consistent in their decision-making. It holds that investors are ‘rational..it’s clear that in reality, humans do not act rationally. In fact, humans often act irrationally in counterproductive, systematic patterns.’”

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Michael Snyder reports:  Shock Survey: 59 Percent Of Americans Support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Proposal To Raise The Top Tax Rate To 70% ^[4]

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DSV sent us this: Wondering Why Americans Are Running from Blue States? ^[5]

Derivatives:

Mark J. Lundeen wrote this interesting analysis, possibly showing the end of a pendulum swing: OTC Interest-Rate Derivative Contracts ^[6]. It is interesting how he ties in the substantial recent movements in stock and precious metals prices with interest rate derivatives.

Stocks:

From Wolf Richter: Stock Market Margin Debt Plummets Most Since Q4 2008 ^[7].  JWR Asks: If leveraged traders are exiting the market, then what does that indicate?

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At IWB: The “Average Stock” is Facing a Big Test Here! ^[8]

Global Trends:

Over at the CNBC Cheering Section: Global growth seen lower in 2019, UBS says, but it’s not all bad ^[9]

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Russia To Overtake Germany As World’s Fifth-Largest Economy ^[10]. (Thanks to H.L. for the link.)

Forex & Cryptos:

The Tragedy Of The Euro ^[11]

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Why Crypto is En Route to the Longest Bear Market in History ^[12]

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Crazy Number of Subpoenas Shows Why Crypto Exchanges are Fleeing the US ^[13]

Tangibles Investing (Home Vaults):

A crucial part of a tangibles investing strategy is safeguarding your investments from theft, fire, and flood. I recommend that you buy only quite stout, good quality vaults. A “gun cabinet” is insufficient. But a typical American-made fireproof gun vault is a good baseline. This should be buttressed by lag bolting your vault down — so that it cannot be carted away by a gang of burglars–and by concealing your vault behind a false wall, hidden door, or a sliding panel/mirror. Installing multiple webcams that store images on a remote server is is also important.

If you live in a flood-prone area, then it is wise to bolt home vaults to the floor of an upstairs room floor, or even an attic room. Since gun vaults are heavy, such positioning can be problematic, and even dangerous to those doing the moving! One solution is to get a modular gun vault. These were pioneered by a company called Zanotti Armor–which made the first widely-available home gun vault that could be taken apart into six pieces. The pieces were attached by large interior pins, driven into hinge-like steel sleeves. More modern variations are made by Snap Safe ^[14], and a few other companies. With modern CNC machining, these are very precisely made and held together with large interior bolts.

Back in December, I had the opportunity to get some hands-on experience, when I helped a consulting client assemble a SnapSafe Super Titan XXL Double Door  ^[14]gun vault. This is a fire-rated design. The 8 pieces went together quickly, with a lot of tight;y-spaced big 19mm bolts, inside. Assembled, it is a 900+ pound safe, but no single piece weighed more than 125 pounds. This made it easy for us to get the pieces it up stairs.

Before buying any home vaults, I recommend that you take a close look at specifications, including wall thickness, door thickness, number and diameter of locking bars, fire rating (measured in minutes), type of lock, and whether or not they have a relocker mechanism. The latter insures that if someone attacks a vault’s lock with “punch attack” that it will default to a locked position.

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 ^[15]. (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!