john12ax7 said:
The future for the US dollar is not looking too good.
Predicting the future in markets is even harder than politics.
Lately the USD has been weakening... (making my drum tuner cheaper for international customers). It is hard to use the typical metrics to predict relative currency value. We are experiencing record low interest rates, and massive quantitative easing, be we are not the only nation working these levers. Europe has gone past 0% to negative interest rates, and much of this extra liquidity is fungible helping world economies.
US spending is worse than ever... Now they are debating how many $T to spend next... The US credit rating has a warning, but is still better than many countries.
Gold is the traditional inflation hedge, but am curious about other less traditional (and more fun) options.
For years my modest gold position (to buy ammo with after the zombie apocalypse) sat around -20%, a little over a week ago I increased my gold position, and started a new position in Silver. The Silver is already up >11% and the combined Gold position is up >14%.... I am typically late with such trades so be careful about following... For the short term silver has more catch up to return to traditional ratios with gold. I would not make a big bet on precious metals but I'm old so trimming common stocks and looking to preserve assets. I only have around 15% in precious metal and almost twice that in cash. The market looks overvalued to me.
Bitcoin is being framed as digital gold, and I think they are due for a halving or whatever that is called. I am still not brave enough to own bitcoin. Probably ok for a small position for a young person, not me.
What do people think will happen to something like high end audio gear and the audio industry in an inflation environment? Any other outside the box hedges?
If inflation ever takes hold rare artworks should do well. It is hard to understand why we don't have far higher inflation already...
While pretty conventional real estate may return to value as a classic primary investment vehicle. Before COVID housing was falling out of favor as young people flocked to living in cities, but COVID has flipped that bias for a couple reasons. Remote working means you no longer have to live in silicon valley to work for big tech, so Microsoft or Google income, while paying midwest living expenses is a win-win.
There is actually a shortage of wood products as home builders try to keep up with new house demand (the bump in home improvement projects while sheltering in place has also drawn down on lumber supplies.)
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To answer what you are hinting at, I am not the right person to opine because I do not value old gear as much as some. I was pleasantly surprised when another forum member (Douglas Williams) was able to convert an old circa 1930s WE piece into hundreds of dollar (contributed to support this forum). I was about to drag it out to the curb for town trash collection. I still suspect this is not a slam dunk investment thesis, but perhaps some genuine old classic microphones might appreciate in value over time (clones not so much).
If I was young I might buy a larger house, mortgage interest rates are crazy cheap, and I can imagine COVID reviving the housing market, or not (maybe not so much here in nowhere MS).
Good luck... there is no sure thing, and markets don't go up to the sky... there is a lot of fast money in the stock markets trading stocks to satisfy their gambling jones (like robin hood, factional shares, etc)... The recent rise in markets has given these inexperienced traders a false sense of security. When they finally sour on the markets there could be a noticeable contraction when they pivot to other forms of gambling.
JR
PS: These new day traders are the same people that bid up the price of Bankrupt Hertz stock... The Hertz bankruptcy court approved a $1B new stock issue to sop up the (illogical ) demand (in bankruptcy equity value goes to $0). Cooler heads at the SEC squashed the new stock issue for a bankrupt company.
