It's been an interesting couple of months since my last post, culminating in a long-overdue 14% drop in the TSX in just over 2 weeks, from July 22 to August 8. The icing on the cake was the S&P rating downgrade of US debt (no real surprise there...).
Year-to-date, the TSX is down about 6.5%, and the established downward trend I commented on last time, which manifested in April, is still holding.
Nonetheless, as a self-proclaimed value investor who primarily follows the Graham-Dodd theory, the three major investments I have made so far this year -- including one quite recently on June 21 -- are up 14%.
Not a bad situation to be in, by comparison.
Because I don't provide investment advice (disclaimer), I don't like to name specific companies, but I will say that after QE2 was wrapping up, the June stake was in an undervalued, major gold producer, in anticipation of the scenario that has played out over the last couple of weeks, and the other two investments were in a mid-tier zinc producer (since bought out at a nice premium, though still low-balled in my eyes) and a large silver fund.
I still very much like the medium-term outlook for precious metals, as I believe that whatever plays out from now until the US election will be positive for them; more fear in the market? Great! More rounds of QE? Even better.
About the only thing that can spoil my outlook would be the election of Ron Paul, and the subsequent monetary policy reform that he would lead, but I put the odds of that happening right now at about 10,000 : 1.
In other news, we have been travelling non-stop. The last 4 weeks alone have seen over 8,000km added to the odometers of our vehicles.
Managed to go on a few hikes, made a trip out to the lake in Saskatchewan, hurtled back and forth from Edmonton a few times, and completed a Top Gear-esque road trip through the best driving roads in BC (the winner for me was Kaslo to New Denver).
Things are slowly settling down now, although we have a wedding to go to this weekend.
Anton's planned stop in Elkford was enjoyable, though unfortunately I had to work and his hiking plans were somewhat crushed. Next time, buddy.
As good as done
13 hours ago
