Wether you like it or not AJ the bulk of societal investments are long term through superannuation, pension schemes, housing, infrastructure and mutual funds. In theory you're not allowed to touch your super/pension until you are of retirement age (that's more than 20 years in the case of most people). A lot of wealth is created through property ownership, another long term investment. Those who don't enter the property market or who drop out are generally left behind financially, particularly on an intergenerational level. Have you ever heard of the term old money? Think of the old frugal working class couple who die owning their inner city house and land they bought for a song when the "inner city" didn't extend that far out. There would be few children and grandchildren of such people who would scoff at inheriting such a property, let alone the assets of wealthier families that might own numerous properties (some retained across generations).
You fill peoples heads with this hypocritical notion that only you can be on the right side of a price trend and that the long term is stupid concept and that people who make predictions about prices have no credibility. This is nonsensical. Whatever it is you do in the markets you are making some form of prediction all the time.....AJ, whichever way you read your charts you're making a prediction every time you hit the buy and sell button. Your expectation of a trend changing or continuing is just another prediction so lay off the average folk who may be using their own deductive reasoning to enter or exit their positions just as validly as you presume to do based on your "seeing institutional money flow" or whatever it is you claim that you see in these raw charts of yours.
For me I try and view stocks as businesses. The Australian gold price has been range bound for a while now so its perfectly valid to put your money into such stocks with a long term view if you believe they have costs under control and a reasonable prospect of extending their mine lives. Should a clear trend develop in the $A gold price that might affect the long term moving average price of a stock (ie its long run valuation) then one can adjust ones portfolio weighting accordingly. Some companies that retain gold hedging go as far as to publish their profitability sensitivities to a range of factors in their annual reports. For someone who has confessed that they are more or less out of the market for gold stocks at the moment you sure spend a lot of time on the gold forums, not unlike a few of the others here whose names I won't mention.
And as far as leverage goes. The bulk of the biggest investments most people make, their houses, are bought with significant leverage. There is no great sin in using leverage in equity investing if you know what you are doing, as long as it's not margin lending IMO. Margin lending forces you to react to price which is not always the best strategy. Sometimes you are better to let price do what it has do and just wait. Eshmun
