Is It Time To Buy Gold?

Given the rise in the equity markets gold has gone down.  Gold is typically a hedge against market downturns.  It would seem to be counter-intuitive to buy gold now that stocks are giving a bigger return.  Plus no one knows how high the market will go.  However, now is probably the best time to start building a gold portfolio.  As the price of gold goes down due to higher equity returns you can buy more of it.  As the adage goes: "buy when people are selling and sell when people are buying."

Tesla: Where To Go From Here

Here is some commentary on TSLA from CNBC:

CNBC Commentary on TSLA

The analysts say that TSLA is overpriced or at the level where it will now be consolidating and moving sideways.  They believe that there is no more equity left at least for the time being.  I am contemplating whether to sell at these levels and put my money into my dividend stocks or just hold and wait to see where it goes from here.  If TSLA paid a dividend I’d be more than happy to stick around, it’s just that I don’t want to tie my money up when I could be making money instead of letting it sit on a stock going sideways.

I’ll see what happens this week and then make my decision by the end of the week.

Real Estate versus the Stock Market

I was recently in a debate about which investment vehicle is the best one to invest in.  More specifically I made the comment that real estate is the "fastest" way for people to become wealthy.  I said this because no bank will ever give you a loan to buy stocks, however they will gladly give you a loan to buy a property.  This key difference is why you are able to make money faster through real estate, you are leveraging the bank's money to get more valuable assets.  Buying stocks overtime will make you wealthy but buying a valuable property at a low price gives you instant equity. 

There are ways of building your wealth through dollar cost averaging and buying stocks over time, but real estate in my opinion is the fastest way to wealth.  There is one caveat here, buying stock options might be a faster way to gaining wealth.  I however don't recommend everyone buy options and try to build wealth that way.  There is more risk in buying options because you are not buying the underlying asset.  You are buying an opportunity to buy something.  You can however leverage your money in a greater way through options trading which will generate larger amounts faster.  That said I do not think the everyone should use this as a vehicle.  I think if you are dedicated to learning about it and doing the research then by all means see if you can master it, but it takes skill and a lot of research.

In essence buying properties at a discount, fixing them up to gain equity and renting them out, is a great way to build wealth quickly, and if you supplement it with buying dividend paying stocks using dollar cost averaging then you are well on your way to financial freedom.

Good time to buy ARR

I've been having a conversation with a couple other investors and we've been debating the merits of ARR.  I recommended them looking at it as a great way to earn monthly dividends.  One of them said that the income statement didn't look good enough for him.  I told him to check out the balance sheet and see their assets.  They have a large amount of equity even though they had a loss for 2013.  Also if you see board members buying up their own stock then you know there is something good happening.  This article confirms my thoughts:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2081833-armour-continues-buybacks-in-a-big-way-for-investors?source=yahoo