Most investment gurus would have you believe that you need to trade a lot and own a lot of securities to become wealthy. But is this really true?
The analysts from Casey Research proof this is not the case, they give a clear example that one very well-informed investment decision per decade is all you need to retire with a small fortune. And we’re not talking about stock picking here, buying a stock like Microsoft (MSFT) at its IPO would have given you a 30,138% gain, but picking these kind of winners is really hard. The example from Casey isn’t about becoming lucky by buying winners but about having lots patience and identifying major economic trends early.
The story starts in 1970 with the purchase of one troy ounce of gold for $35. In January 1980 the price of gold hit a peak of around $850, but in this example the gold is sold at $627 and invested into the Japanese Nikkei index. One decade later it’s time for the next investment, the Nikkei went up more than fivefold and the initial capital of $35 was turned into $3,548. This money could then be invested in the NASDAQ and sold for a tenfold profit in 2000. Oil or gold were a good place to put the tech money into, an investment into oil would have given you close to $112,336 while an investment in gold would have quadrupled your investment to $134,081.
Basically, if a young guy in the 1970s identified these trends he could have turned $1,000 into over $3 million by the time he retired. Here’s the chart from Casey Research, they reached a higher number as they wrote this report in 2008 when oil was still trading over $100. Now the challenge is to identify the trend for the next ten years
After months of waiting German “tanzmetall” band Rammstein finally performed in Antwerp as part of their Liebe ist für alle da tour. Tickets for the concert in the Sportpaleis were sold out nearly instantaneously, the ticket sales system was flooded with orders and I wasn’t able to order them myself. Fortunately, I found someone with four spare tickets and he gave them to me without charging an exorbitant premium.
The first time I saw Rammstein was at Rock Werchter a couple of years ago and I really looked forward to seeing them again as their performance at Werchter was stunning. About an hour before Rammstein came on stage Combichrist kicked off the evening as the support act, I had never heard of this aggrotech band before and I didn’t really like them.
Rammstein on the other hand was amazing, they made a spectacular intro and Rammlied was the beginning of about 1.5 hours filled to the brim with all kinds of pyrotechnics. The band is well known for the use of flame throwers and other special effects during their songs, some of the highlights of the concert include Till spraying the audience with foam from his “Fleischgewehr” cannon (Pussy), Flake rowing through the audience in his inflatable boat (Haifisch), setting a stunt man on fire (Benzin), Till with flame-throwing angel wings (Engel), and Flake being forced into a bath to receive a fire shower from Till (Ich tu dir weh).
The concert was perhaps a bit too short but we had a blast, the music was great, the lightshow was amazing and the special effects were stunning. Below are a couple of video clips to give you an idea of what a Rammstein concert is all about. These clips are from the Rammstein concert in Paris earlier this week, the show is not exactly the same as the one in Antwerp but the image and sound quality of these clips is much better than the ones I found from Thursday’s concert.
Ah the joys of central planning by a supposedly superhuman creature named government. Here’s a video of New Ordos, a brand new Chinese city designed for 1 million citizens, built in just five years. But nobody moved in, the city is completely empty…
Prosper De Backer (11 mei 1933 – 2 september 2009)
Liefste pit,
Voor ons heb je altijd heel goed zorg gedragen,
Van in de kinderwagen tot na onze tienerjaren,
Als er iets was konden we altijd bij je terecht,
We zagen je heel graag en dat menen we oprecht.
Veel fijne herinneringen verzachten nu onze smart,
Voorgoed uit ons midden maar voor altijd in ons hart.
