Advice on Non-US Dollar Investing?

Interactive Brokers gives you access to 19 countries from a single account (including Switzerland and Australia) and the ability to use multiple currencies. Interactive Brokers is more for traders than investors and you will be charged $10 a month unless you pay at least $30 a month in commissions.

What do you plan on doing when the dollar appreciates?

One of the most important investment lessons I have learned is not to make long-term investment decisions based on current/recent conditions.

on 8/8/10 2:23 PM HW "Skip" Weldon said the following:

One of the most important lessons I have learned is to be thankful I had good economic teachers. 20 years of massive mismanagement of the US dollar. I didn't think this would happen, but now I have learned politicos in an empire are frozen by vested interests until crisis and collapse. We don't learn in other words.

Another word for this is "cycles".

What's your take on the government's (by this I mean government at all level - local, state, federal) attempt to spend our way out of a recession, in lieu of the traditional "cut taxes" (and services).

I think transaction costs could be high for actually buying and selling currencies. If you want to do this, I suggest currency futures:

Basically you have the right to exercise a currency exchange at a specific future date but you can sell that right prior to the date.

Frank

Traveling to each country to set up a brokerage acct would not be the obvious way. Usually they require a local address to set up an acct. So I would find a brokerage that allows you to have different currency accts. Or buy currency mutual funds or ETF's.

"everbank.com" lets you set up foreign denominated accounts. But I dont those think accounts are FDIC insured.

Do you mean opening an account overseas, or do you mean opening an account here and using it to invest in overseas assets like foreign stocks, currencies, etc?

The former is a much bigger pain in the butt. The latter is trivial.

It's not even necessarily as obvious as you are saying. Which countries would you go to to open the accounts?

Are you aware that you still have to report the accounts to the IRS?

This is a good read:

If you just want to hedge the dollar, there's no need to go further than your local discount brokerage.

It is insured. I had money with Everbank for quite a few years, though no more.

i

Wouldn't investing in Gold be a good hedge against the US dollar?

If you eat gold, or consume it in your business (if you are a jeweler), it would be a good hedge. Otherwise, I would not call it a hedge, and it is much closer to speculation.

i

This is not a trough in a regular business cycle. It a deleveraging from a massive historical Credit Bubble. The government lies about stats (google 'Shadow Stats') including the latest estimates of Medicare costs. The ObamaCare is basically an expansion of Medicare.

No it isn't. I wish it was. Thumper

Do you know any prudent medical doctors? The scams are endless including B.S drug studies. Ever notice the contradictory medical stories? What does this imply?

It's Ok to disagree. My take is that this is a typical cycle and we are in the contraction phase. I agree with you that for the most part this phase is being driven by extraordinarily high levels of debt accumulated during the expansion phase.

This phase will end. It will eventually wring out what caused the contraction (excessive debt) and then we will begin the expansion phase. I don't know when that will be and I don't know what will cause it. I do know that it has never done anything but this... despite all the cries that "this time is different".

But I do expect that this contraction will last longer than most previous contractions - primarily due to the government's attempt to eliminate the "hurt" caused by the contraction. It concerns me that our leaders don't understand that the PURPOSE of a contraction is to wring out excesses. By its nature that causes hurt, and until that happens all the government spending in the world won't end the contraction - but it definitely prolongs it.

The financial planning implications of this are to eliminate debt, seriously cut prices of real estate if you want to sell and to raise cash (people with lots of cash don't feel recessions).

On the other hand, my wife thinks I am a bozo and she has been married to me for 40+ years. So what do I know.

I purchase ADRs in foreign companies. There are some ETFs that hold foreign stock with some of the companies not having ADRs.

-- Ron

Any opinion on Euro Pacific Capital (Peter Shiff's firm)?

I think that it would be best to avoid that company. They don't seem to have any mutual funds or ETFs.

-- Ron