After a much much much loooong break

Hello to any and all during the holidays. First off, a much overdue apology to everyone for this even more overdue post. 2008 has been an interesting year in the markets - actually one of the most extraordinary years of in the history of equities period.

I would love to fill you in on all of the gory details for the past year but I will only offer a few.

First of all I have started a small asset-management company. Since this blog in no way is being used to "plug it" I won't even tell you what it is called. What i will tell you is that I have created a setup for my clientele that is fair all around. NO MANAGEMENT FEES. Even better, full transparency - My clients each have their own account with their own mix of stocks and other trading vehicles, long and short positions, etc. The funds are locked in for a pre-set amount of time. I only charge a percentage of whatever I make for my clients.

I am feeling very good about it, since my only incentive is to make my clients money.

My point in all this: This is how ordinary investors should be investing if they don't want to have to do it themselves - a gain-only set up where they aren't paying some guy thousands a year to lose them money!

But there is still a primary reason for posting. I will now lay out my predictions for the next year, nice and simple. I may do individual posts for each point to elaborate on where I am drawing my conclusions from but for now I will simply publish where my money is going for 2009.

I am going to be SHORT the following companies/trading vehicles:

Goldman Sachs - I have been reviewing their balance sheet in depth and I am waiting for a good sucker rally (bull) to short goldman with a 6 - 12 month window. Their financials are actually a lot worse than they would have anyone believe and with Paulson out their big fat lifeline is gone.

GM - I will be shorting once the stock retracts to the 5.50 -6.00 point and holding out for a drop to 2.50. Should be fairly quickly since their cash-burn rate eats through the TARP money in about 1 - 2 months.

USD versus EURO and USD versus Canadian Dollar - Once this mass migration to treasuries reverses itself the USD will fall like a stone and should hit the .55 or even .50 mark benched agains the EURO, and probably the .90 mark benched agains the CAD. To add fuel to this fire, China will be dumping almost $600 Billion of USD's onto the market to fund their infrastructure program, causing a glut of selling.

As a result of this USD movement, my long positions will be in:

HARD ASSETS - Gold, silver, steel, copper, zinc, etc. I have added over $25,000.00 0f silver through a pooled account in the last 3 months as I see silver running to $25.00 an ounce or so hedged against the USD.

Junior mining companies that have enough cash to ride out the crisis and into the future supply drought of base metals that has been caused by this credit crunch.

Currently I hold:

55,000 shares of Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation (TSE:BIM)

100,000 shares of Linear Metals Corporation: TSE:LRM

10,000 shares of Couer D'Alene Silver - NYSE:CDE

Teck Cominco B-Class shares - TSE:TCK.b

Also a few speculative long-term plays that i have added due to distressed levels:

Amorfix Life Sciences, 5,000 shares - TSE:AMF - created a blood scanning chip to detect Mad-Cow disease, currently working with UK government. Also have a drug being marketed by BioGen for alzheimer's.

ZENN motors. Not only for the cars, but for EEStor, which they own part of.


Stay away from anything credit-based, or that requires customers with credit. Also avoid USD denominated stocks and find ones that have revenue on hard assets in a basket of currencies. This provides a hedge against the hyper-inflation that USD will experience in last 2009-early 2010.

Best of luck in the new year. I'll be back soon!