By Thom Calandra
TIBURON, Calif. (TC) -- Good Morning, Voldy Morts.
Here ya go, ThomInAtor Bullets in short order, piping scrum-dilly-licious:
-- Papa (my wife's Papa) the other day at Le Boulange reminded us what one of the chairmen em-uh-red-eye at long-gone Homestake Mining in SF used to say about gold, harrumphing on stage, "An ounce should cost about the price of a good men's suit." The executive miner pronounced this metric before Men's Wearhouse came onto Main Street, I guarantee it. A good suit, in tribute to very good textiles from China and detailing from Singapore, these days runs much less than $1,000. I take the old man's gold measurement (the emmer-red-eye chairman being the old man here) to mean: an ounce of gold should run about the price of buying something you need to keep yourself in the game. Food. Clothing. A tank of petrol.
-- Voldies, my ETF friend around the corner here in good old Tibbie says the so-called GDX is worth a look-see. This fund tracks a basket of gold miner stocks, some of them the "junior" producers and explorers whose values have sunk even as the gold price has risen. Go figger. I do not own GDX, by the way. But I hope to start kicking some tires soon.
-- What else is there to say? Umm, the bank ETF idea seems to have worked well. What was it, the UYG? (See previous posts please.) It was selling for $26 or so last week and now it's $33. I have no idea if Bear Stearns is in the UYG basket, but hey, the banks were almost destined to spark any decent rebound in stock markets, their shares getting bloodied so the past month or so. And so the bank shares did.
-- What's to look forward to? Well, my new TT, for one (in the picture above). I get to play with Tommy Toys once in a while, you know. Something else on the horizon: baseball, my beloved A's just evened their Tokyo series against those very fine Botox Red Sox overnight. My little guy and I are going to see the A's & the Giants play one of their traditional exhibition games (the third one in SF) this coming weekend.
Anything else, Voldy morts? Please let me know. Email me at thom.calandra@gmail.com. See you at ThomCalandra.com!
-- Thom Calandra in Tiburon
