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Confessions of a Gold Analyst: "It's All My Fault"

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Common sense dictates that when you need information or advice on something you're unfamiliar with, you consult with a professional. That's what people do, whether refinancing a home, choosing an insurance product, or fixing a broken heater. While professionals certainly have their own agendas, they still know more about their products or services than others, and can at least help them make more informed decisions.

Bank and brokerage analysts know their products, too. But when it comes to helping you make an informed decision about where the gold market is headed, they have, as Rick Rule is fond of saying, a record unblemished by success. Continue reading "Confessions of a Gold Analyst: "It's All My Fault"" →

The Fiscal Cliff Was A Wasted Opportunity

Posted on by The INO.com Team

The label "the fiscal cliff" evoked the fear that something terrible was about to happen if the previously legislated spending cuts and tax increases came into effect. From my point of view, our nation's deficits and debt are growing at an alarming rate and need to be cut back. The reason these laws were enacted was to offer markets some hope that we would eventually work toward eliminating our serious deficits. But the prevailing opinion that such drastic decreases in our deficit would slow our economy and bring recession created the impression that this "cliff" must be avoided.

The chart below indicates the size of our federal government's budget deficit. The blue bars reflect what would have happened if there were no legislative changes, and the harsh measures of tax increases and spending cuts occurred. The red bars reflects potential tax increases, the green spending cuts, and the purple is additional interest paid on the expanded debt as a result of bigger deficits. The cliff is seen in the rapid drop of the deficit in the first few years of the blue bars. Continue reading "The Fiscal Cliff Was A Wasted Opportunity" →

The 12 Rules to Follow for Buying Dividend Stocks

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Many of you have probably filled out one of the "retirement planner" forms available online. Plenty of tax and accounting programs also have "Lifetime Planner" sections for folks to determine if they can afford to retire.

These sorts of programs plug certain assumptions into a formula, such as projected inflation rate, retirement income, anticipated spending levels, and portfolio growth rate. After you add your personal information, it projects how much money you'll be able to produce annually during retirement, and how long it will last.

The first time I ran these numbers, the program said I was good until 116 years of age. At the time, I believed that if we followed the plan as outlined, my wife and I would never have any real money worries. We'd be set for the rest of our lives and could proudly leave some to our children to help with their retirement. How naïve of me! Continue reading "The 12 Rules to Follow for Buying Dividend Stocks" →

How Green Are Gold's Blue-Chip Mining Stocks?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Disenchanted with gold's lackadaisical performance over the last year, some investors are losing interest in the equities that are supposed to provide leverage to the metal's price movements. The press has added fuel to the fire by increasingly attacking gold-mining CEOs for rising production costs and weak stock prices. This has driven some investors to pursue ETFs or other vehicles as a replacement for gold stocks, while others have simply thrown their hands up and left the precious-metals space. Is this overreaction or rational decision-making?

We set out to objectively evaluate how gold-mining majors have been performing operationally in the current commodity bull market that started roughly at the beginning of 2002. We compare them against the S&P 500 – the mainstream "blue chip" index – to see if gold miners deserve the beating they've received. We also look at what may lie ahead for one of our favorite subsectors of the gold universe. Continue reading "How Green Are Gold's Blue-Chip Mining Stocks?" →

How Should You Get Started?

Posted on by The INO.com Team

How much gold is enough? How much should you allocate to dividend-paying stocks? How much should you hold in cash? How can you sort through the vast number of opportunities out there?

When it comes to building and managing your retirement portfolio, it's common to feel overwhelmed and just want to throw your hands in the air!

One of the biggest surprises since starting Miller's Money Forever is the kind of questions I've received from our readers. The vast majority are about the process behind selecting investments and building a balanced portfolio, and very few are about this or that stock.

Most readers understand that sitting on cash during times of inflation is a bad thing. At the same time, they are reluctant to invest in an uncertain market. Continue reading "How Should You Get Started?" →