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 Happy New Year.
The year is
drawing to a close. And what a year it’s been, filled with twists and
turns, some surprises, thrills, excitement, history and some disappointments
too, all topped off with gold skyrocketing in its biggest monthly rise in a
decade.
BULLISH MARKETS
But regardless of
the emotional ups and downs, this year has been much better than last year,
which was one for the record books. This year has been very good for our
subscribers since we’ve been invested in the metals markets and the
strongest currencies throughout the year, along with energy and resource
stocks. Since mid-year, we’ve also been invested in the emerging stock
markets and other strong stock sectors, and all of these areas have done very
well (see Chart 1).
The year ahead,
however, is shaping up to be even more interesting than the year that’s
now ending.
THE END OF A
DECADE
In fact,
it’s actually been an incredible decade. As we’ve often
discussed, the year 2000 marked the beginning of a new era that does not
happen often. But when it does, it warrants a total strategy shift, which is
what’s been taking place over the past 10 years.
Starting in 2000,
for instance, stocks fell sharply as the tech boom came to an abrupt end.
Gold started to rise. This shift was most important as it marked the
beginning of a lost decade for stocks. The stock market has lost 10% since
then while gold has quintupled. Hands down, gold has been the far better
investment.
It’s also
been the decade and era of commodities as they’ve moved higher as well.
At the same time, the U.S. dollar has steadily declined, and for the most
part, so have interest rates.
THE WINNERS
These have been
the primary mega trends this decade and as 2009 comes to an end, you can see
that these trends remained in full swing this year.
As Chart 1 shows,
gold, the other metals and commodities (represented by silver and oil), U.S.
stocks, the global emerging stock markets and the major currencies were the
outstanding winners this year. The U.S. dollar was the loser.
All of this
year’s big winners were generally markets that fell last year, some
more than others, as a result of the horrendous financial crisis, which hit
just about everything. When the dust finally settled, most of these markets
reached major or intermediate bottoms. This year they made up for lost time
by rebounding strongly, with some of the markets wiping away last
year’s losses.
WHAT ABOUT 2010?
Will these
upmoves continue as we move into the new year? We believe that they
will. But since these markets have all had significant gains, we’ll
likely see further downward corrections first before they resume their
rises. So don’t be surprised.
Remember, no
market goes straight up or straight down. Corrections along the way are
normal and they’re healthy.
The major trends
are always the most important. That’s where your focus should be
because that’s where the greatest profits are made.
If you’re
in for the long haul, which is what we advise for most investors, then stay
with the major trends and use corrections as an opportunity to buy more of an
investment you feel you don’t have enough of, but at a better price.
All of our
recommended markets on Chart 1, for example, are in major uptrends. So any
upcoming weakness will provide good buying opportunities. And we don’t
think that’s going to change. Why?
THE DEBT MONSTER
Very simply, the
global financial system has gotten itself into a cornered situation where
there’s no way out. This is not our opinion, it’s essentially the
facts.
Wealth is
shifting from West to East. Asia is booming, along with some of the other
emerging markets, while the West is struggling and barely pulling itself out
of recession. China has trillions in its reserves, the U.S. is broke and
it’s borrowing like there’s no tomorrow. So what does this mean?
The bottom line
is that the U.S. has few options. Its debt is soaring to levels that were
unthinkable just a couple of years ago. It is truly shocking, but the U.S.
keeps spending. And it’s spending money that it does not have, so it
has to keep borrowing more and more, and it won’t be able to pay these
massive amounts back.
HOW THE PIPER
WILL BE PAID
Just the interest
on the debt is going to amount to over $500 billion within the next five
years. That’s more than the total deficit last year and it’ll
amount to one third of all taxes collected. In other words, there won’t
be much money
left for everything else, which just means even more borrowing and greater
deficits for as far as the eye can see.
Since default is
out of the question, the only way out of this situation will be ongoing
weakness in the dollar and the inflation option, which is historically the
old tried and true, least painful method of keeping it all together for as
long
as possible.
So we can assume
that the dollar will head lower in the years ahead. And at the same time,
gold and commodities will move sharply higher.
BEYOND 2010
These are the
mega trends that’ve been in force for a decade and there’s no
reason to believe this is going to change. As for stocks, they’ll
likely continue rising as long as interest rates remain low. But the big
moves are going to be
in gold, the other precious metals, commodities and to a lesser degree, the
currency markets.
For those who
think gold is already too expensive consider this from our dear friend Ian
McAvity and his great newsletter, Deliberations… Gold is about
52% higher than it was at its January, 1980 peak. Meanwhile, the CPI, which
is the consumer measure of inflation is 177% higher, the money supply is 464%
higher and the stock market
is nearly 900% higher.
He notes,
“I don’t think it untoward to suggest that gold is badly lagging
a number of important yardsticks and at these levels it has some catching up
to do.” We couldn’t agree more and this will likely happen in the
year ahead, and beyond.
Mary Anne and Pamela Aden
Editors,
The Aden Forecast
Aden Forecast.com
Mary
Anne and Pamela Aden are internationally known analysts and editors of The
Aden Forecast, a market newsletter providing specific forecasts on gold, gold
shares and the other major markets.
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