• One of the most common pieces of investment advice of recent years is that you had to own gold.

    Gold, some said, was the only true currency.

    Gold would protect the value of your savings from the ravages of out-of-control government money printing.

    Gold was a simple substance--free from the accounting shenanigans, corruption, fraud, and operational uncertainty of stocks and companies.

    Related: Stay Short Gold, Go Long Crude: Krinsky

    As gold prices continued to rise, this logic was repeated so often that it came to be viewed as fact. And it appeared to explain not just why gold prices were rising, but why they would continue to rise--to $2,000 an ounce, $5,000 an ounce, and beyond.

    Alas, the party now appears to be over.

    This morning, gold prices crashed through $1,300 an ounce, hitting the lowest level in two years. At $1,300, gold is now down 30% from its peak. And all investors who finally bought into the gold mania over the past couple of years are now underwater.

    If this were mere

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  • The dirty little secret of finance is that everyone is making it up on the fly. Economics is a social science focused on human behaviors. People have a habit of behaving in ways they "shouldn't." Other scientific pursuits have tangible answers where economics has a collection of best guesses. The speed of light is a constant but the velocity of money is subject to the collective whims irrational masses.

    For the better part of six years the FOMC has been doing its best to give away money. On an institutional, level money is essentially free. The notion driving this Federal Reserve largesse was the idea that free money would get spent, thus stimulating the economy. There should be inflation right now. Instead the economy is listless, almost sedated.

    If market participants seem on edge it's only because everything they once believed to be true is either being shown to be utterly false or the delay between cause and effect is so long that the theory is pointless.

    Keep all of this in mind as you watch the attached clip with Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of The Real Crash, Yahoo! Finance senior columnist Mike Santoli, and the Breakout crew. The heat is real but not personal. Traders and economists are being forced to rethink models, investments and philosophies in real time. If there is inflation it's not measurable. If unemployment is falling it's all but imperceptible pace.

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  • The abrupt firing of Men’s Wearhouse (MW) founder and chairman George Zimmer shocked shareholders on Wednesday and raised many questions about the company’s future. The 64-year-old Zimmer sold raincoats out of the trunk of his car before opening the first Men’s Wearhouse store in Houston in 1973. He was the public face of the men’s suit purveyor, appearing in company ads and delivering his legendary sign-out “You’re going to like the way you look, I guarantee it,” with his husky, baritone voice.

    Related: Men’s Wearhouse Chaos: It’s Time to Halt the Stock

    “It’s very odd” that Zimmer was dismissed on the same day of the company’s shareholders' meeting (it was then hastily postponed), says Brad Adgate, director of research at Horizon Media. “I’ve never seen this before.”

    Adgate says board members may have wanted to shift the company toward a younger clientele: “Going after millennials is something all advertisers want to do… the company might be looking for a younger, fresher look,” he

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  • Now that the most recent Most Important FOMC Meeting ever is behind us and stocks are getting pummeled it's time to sit back and review what individual investors have learned. There will be a quiz at the end of this column.

    Russel Investments' Chief Market Strategist Steve Wood says ignoring the day-to-day noise and sticking with what he calls "goal oriented investing" is critical, especially in volatile periods such as this. By goal oriented Wood means creating a portfolio designed to meet specific goals.

    It seems an obvious point but it's easy to lose the thread on why we invest. No one ever made money buying and selling equities as a political statement. How you personally feel about Ben Bernanke or the Fed's strategy for tapering stimulus can be part of your investing vision but it's not a trading catalyst.

    "Buy and hold is not the same as set and forget," says Wood in the attached video. There are macro factors to consider when setting and modifying your portfolio, but these aren't decisions that should be made either late at night or in the throes of an FOMC panic. "Trying to time every wiggle in the market is not doable in my opinion and I don't know that it's possible for a person to make money doing that," Wood notes.

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