Turn off the 'Hype Machine'

CBS Marketwatch ^ | April 23, 2002 | Paul B. Farrell

[hripka]

Here we go again. The recovery's in high gear. The bull's back. So forget the past two years America. You can make up your losses up fast. But you better act fast! How? Cash in your money markets. Play the game. Get back in "the action!" The new message is everywhere. Like a big increase in junk mail, especially those annoying get-rich-quick financial newsletter solicitations. Or Ameritrade's online trading ads designed to hook investors on the trading drug, by giving away "25 commission-free trades." But the scariest messages are in the latest crop of financial magazine covers flashing like sensationalistic tabloids in the supermarkets. You don't have to be Freud to get their cleverly disguised subliminal calls to action

[hripka]

Financial magazines are trying to convince you to buy overpriced stocks.

[Wright is right!]

Ameritrade's offer has been around for a LONG time. Nothing new about it...

Michael

[arthurus]

Sounds like,"Oh NO! I hear the Voices!!! Stop me before I kill again!!!"

[another cricket]

Ameritrade's offer has been around for a LONG time. Nothing new about it...

at least three years I think.

a.cricket

[Tasha]

Everything you wrote is true. There are really very few places where you can put money now. The real estate bubble will definitely disappear, so the stock market maybe will be going lower, much lower.
You see, if clinton times were considered a bubble in the stock market, a stock market bubble has to end below its starting point. I have studied many bubbles, and each of them ended up below the level where they started.
I am not much of a gold freak, but I love to collect old gold coins. It seems like this kind of investment is a pretty safe one, and you have the feeling of touching history.
I am not trying to predict wall street, but remember the rules: The bubble always ends below its starting point. This does not mean that we can't go up to 11,000 and have some rallies. Good luck.

[Tasha]

What I had in mind is gold coins from the period of Alexander the Great. There are still some on sale. Coins which were printed by Nero, with his image. Gold coins issued by Octavian to celebrate his victory over Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Very few gold coins were printed by the Confederates, but they are out there. They might cost some money, but they won't lose value in any scenario. The difference will be, ASC under the eagle's wings. Otherwise, they look exactly like the Union gold coins.
By the way, most coins that I will buy must be at least a thousand years old. It is very hard to find decent and honest dealers, but they are out there if you are looking for them. You have to evaluate every coin by a historian who knows the period the coin was printed. Not that long ago I saw a coin which was struck by Cassius, one of the famous assasins of Caesar. There are also coins which were struck by Brutus. You just have to look for them and find a decent and reputable coin dealer.

[Tasha]

There are more historical pieces of art than coins, almost impossible to be stolen. Mostly, they are so unique that anyone around the world who is in coin collection will know to whom the coins belong.

[Tasha]

Since coins are art, and some coins go as high as $1.5 million per coin (Roosevelt Golden Eagle). I don't think they would be able to say anything. You see, coins are as good an investment as a house, real estate, stock; but one good thing about coins is that you can put one in your pocket, and mostly people don't understand and do not recognize their value. People who recognize a coin's value will be the coin collectors.