Comments Off on Back Up The Truck bAbY! I’m Buying Gold!

[ Woops, originally posted with link to wrong article ]

I’ve been writing an article on gold over on Wealth.net which I wish I posted before today’s session, (which could be a key reversal day). In any case, since the gold crash back in April I am in agreement with the (microscopic minority) who think that we are nearing the end of a cyclical gold bear within a secular bull and have been adding to my positions for the first time since 2009 (for stocks) and 2006 (for physical).

What I found of interesting is after analyzing the major producers in the wake of the crash, they look like more compelling values now than at their previous cyclical lows in October 2008. I’ve put that in a PDF which can be downloaded from Wealth.net, but tonight I posted a general overview on the end of this cyclical gold bull.

It’s over here.

Comments Off on Shorting the market today.

Right off the top I should caution you all “don’t try this at home”, because I almost always lose money when I trade the short side of the market or an individual equity.

That said, after my post earlier this week about taking some profits off the table in the face of what seems to be overwhelming complacency and confidence in the stock market, the evidence continues to mount. Read more »

Comments Off on Lightening up positions and taking profits

In the face of soaring complacency and optimism I am lightening up some equity positions and taking profits. To the left we see the VIX at near lowest levels since just prior to the onset of the GFC. With markets challenging their all-time highs, I would feel more comfortable with an ascending VIX, not a descending one.

This tells me that confidence and complacency are high. I am also seeing a lot of scorn directed at those who seem to agree with me, combined with numerous rationalizations on why the markets have nowhere to go but up. For instance, some guy on twitter has deemed this  “crass contrarianism” as “silly”, and people are pretty eager to agree.

So it’s time for me to take some profits off the table, including RIM – thanks for the easiest double+ ever. I once again made my cardinal investing error and wished I had bought more. I also lightened up a few of my Euro indexes and took profits on Portugal Telecom.

I should also mention I sold some of my beloved Tucows. I had a small position in another trading account I decided to liquidate for a tidy gain but I am still long and strong a much larger position within my RRSPs and plan to keep adding there when the circumstances present themselves.

Read more »

Comments Off on How SOPA Will Destroy The Internet

As you read this, please keep in mind that I say it all with a track record nearly 14 years of being proactive and having a zero-tolerance policy toward criminal activity and network abuse on the easyDNS system. We have great relationships with Law Enforcement Agencies both here in Canada and abroad. We are always helpful and (usually) happy to answer questions, and help LEA understand the complexities and nuances of the internet. We’ve had the good fortune to meet some really intelligent and clued in cybercrime units. We participate in numerous communities in combating net.abuse and cybercrime.

I finally got around to reading the text of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) today. While the ostensible intentions are to combat online piracy and the sale of counterfeit goods, the bad news is that the legislation contains elements which basically puts every single domain registered under generic TLDs under the authority of the United States Attorney General.

We have already seen in cases if the ICE domain seizures, improper takedowns and overreach resulting in the takedown of tens of thousands of websites when a single one was the target.

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Comments Off on A US Dollar Crash will give US-based Registrars Huge Advantage

I have been monitoring this situation for literally as long as I’ve been in the domain name business, which is nearly 15 years. easyDNS, based in Canada,  does nearly half of all it’s revenues in US dollars. In the early days of the company, the USD was worth upwards of 1.35 to 1.45 Canadian. We made piles of money on the exchange, and because we weren’t a margin player, the relatively small amount we were paying back to the registries in USD didn’t really bother us.

Of course that began to seriously change to the point where we really started noticing it after 2003, 2004 area. The Canadian loonie has even hit past parity a couple times, and believe me when that happens, we feel it!

We’re basically in the same position as “exporters” to the US, we pull in revenues in USD, but we incur expenses up here in CDN. So when the USD is weak, it reflects in our revenues.

I look at things in an extremely long-term perspective, so much so, that I often look crazy. When I placed a bet with my former accountant circa 2004 that the Canadian dollar would hit parity within 5 years, I think those were his exact words “You’re crazy”. I wish I could find a usenet discussion board I said the same on back in the early 00’s, where I was also assured  by the resident pundits that the Canadian loonie would never, ever rise higher than .75.

So here we are today, where a loonie in the .95 to parity range is the new normal and we’ve been actively executing our strategy for protecting against a weak USD for several years.

That strategy included:

1. Read more »