Well, just as Doug Casey predicted, Obama won the US election. I wouldn't make too much of Doug's successful prediction, as he's the first to say that these two Obama victories are the only presidential elections he's predicted correctly.

More to the point is the joke going around about two guys watching the election results in a bar, when Obama's victory is announced. One guy groans: "Four more years!" The other guy cries: "Four more beers!"

What's interesting about this to us is that it reflects investor sentiment. The markets reacted strongly to the election, clearly showing that most investors think another Obama term is bad for the economy. It was striking to see gold and the Dow move so sharply in opposite directions.

Reality

The reality – according to Doug and the Casey Brain Trust – is that neither likely winner could stop the train wreck ahead for the economy, so the outcome really didn't matter.

Sure, Obama wasted no time in talking about raising taxes on the rich, which surely only added to investors' certainty that the president will make things worse. But Romney could have pushed the US into a war much faster, and that would need to be paid for – not that drone-happy Obama is a dove himself.

Again, the reality is that even if the differences in rhetoric between Obama and Romney were real, they simply don't matter compared to the world of hurt pending after decades of mismanagement of the US economy and the post-2008 panic. The stampede has taken the US in completely the wrong direction (dousing the debt bonfire with more easy money), as it has in Europe and Asia as well.

All I can really add to this is to remind people of Doug's mantra for this cycle: buy gold for prudence, gold stocks and other "crisis investing" stocks to speculate for profit, and internationalize yourself to diversify your political risk.

Perception

That said, perception does move investors, and prices are fixed at the margins, especially during a market mania, which, by definition, divorces prices from underlying value.

In this context, the post-electoral perception of increased economic risk is obviously bullish for the financial safe haven of gold. This on top of the probable seasonal increase in gold prices this winter is highly bullish for precious metals stocks in the months ahead – miners and explorers alike. And if we see any black swans alighting during this time, fear and greed could both drive the masses into the only investing sector that offers security and profits.

That would be powerful indeed, and we'd see a market mania for the record books.

But even if no major black swans upset the house of cards our politicians are desperately trying to hold together amidst a hurricane with an unlimited flow of money-glue… well, there's still the unlimited flow of money-glue and its necessary consequences, which are bullish for all things real, especially precious metals.

There's also the looming US "fiscal cliff" and all the media circus around the political grandstanding we'll see in the weeks and months ahead. Indeed, it's already started. Among the things at stake are sunsetting tax cuts, the lapse of which would hit many middle-class families hard, not just "the rich." The rhetorical slugfest ahead and its impact on investor perceptions promises to keep markets fear-dominated and volatile. And that too is very bullish for precious metals in the near term.

Investors already active in the precious-metals sector seem to realize much of this already. Share prices for good companies that have not run out of cash are up, money is becoming available for project financing, and mergers and acquisitions activity has started heating up again.

I'm happy to say that our readers who acted on our recommendations to buy during last summer's Shopping Season are profiting already, and poised to profit more in the months ahead.

What To Do

Given these circumstances, the odds dictate the following general strategies:

• If you're long, do not let greed get the better of you: take profits when you have them. You can redeploy them into more stocks if you're extremely bullish and don't mind losing your gains, should the market turn in an unexpected way. Or take them out of the game – use them to buy some real asset you want or need. Or whatever else suits your fancy. Just don't get cocky. Yes, we expect things to continue going up for some time, but no one can say what will be with certainty.
  
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• If you're not long, it is not too late. There are great deals out there that have still not rebounded much from last summer's lows, as well as others that have, but which have material, value-adding developments coming soon. Plus, a rising tide lifts all ships –at least the ones without holes in their hulls.
  
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In short, if you're an investor who's unhappy with the way the US election turned out, just remember what to do when life hands you lemons – make lemonade. We don't call the shots, but we can sure do our best to profit and provide for our loved ones based on the trends we see developing.

No whining.

That's the investor's equivalent of being a deer caught in headlights. The deer are not actually caught – if they'd just keep going, they'd almost never get hit at all.

The cure for post-election blues is action. If you agree with my analysis above, you know what to do. If you don't agree, that's fine – take action based on whatever you see the trends to be. Either course has risks and may or may not work out, but sitting in the headlights is the worst thing you can do.