My brother contacted me about his concerns about a market crash, and how to navigate one. The following is my response with some datapoints attached. I have blanked out some of the names my brother and I own. I apologize for the paragraph spacing but this was pulled from my e mail to him and didn’t wish to do all the WordPress formatting.
I don’t have a crystal ball and really don’t advise people in general or even friends or relatives anymore especially since my folks passed away. And there is no way that I am turning WW into an investment/speculation rag. If you ask me for specific plays I won’t answer. And we have already discussed the insider manipulation and getting the memo edge gaming and algos.
So feel free to accept or reject this, no skin off my back. My conviction is relatively high but not certain. It is simply food for thought. But there may be some elements of use.
Brother-
You should definitely be worried about a “market” and economic crash, but first one needs to define the “market” of 2026. There has already been a bear market in most stocks including gold shares.
Because of this Ai bubble pile in nobody really owns miners or juniors- it is not a crowded trade.
It is pretty evident where the crash will come- Ai and the associated concentrated passive Etfs that people are stuffed to the gills with. The Etf fad will drag down the broader “market” more in the names these passive indexes use. Little of that are precious metals shares and none are juniors. Is the sell panic button really going to be tiny Van Eck Gold Miners ETF?
There is unlikely to be a “panic” in ******, et al, in fact money will try to bid on them, and these trade thin. If anything randomly slips BUY THEM. I have plenty of cash for that, but I am not selling anything now in that sector.
Explorers provide alpha via discoveries. The ones I use raise capital early in 26 when prices in the sector were higher.
Gold will be a haven the instant all this nonsense about rate hikes disappears. The credit collapse will hasten the USD rout and flight to new safe havens. Selection is still important.
I know you think that is physical silver and rolls of nickels, but those have real liquidity problems when the shops you try to trade with close down. Your other option is ****** Bank? My biggest personal concern are my holdings of short term US Treasury bills and dollar and Euro debasement, not *****, ~~~~, ##### and +++++.
The major miners are more flush with cash and debt free than ever. They are extremely profitable and not expensive stocks.
Note: higher fuel costs will impact this to a degree.
The miners biggest problem are mine lives and replacing mined reserves. As they are cashed up they don’t need much new debt to start scarfing names like ***** or #### and build new mines. There is a scarcity of targets. Silver is more of a shortage play as is oil and I think natural gas. Energy has been artificially manipulated by masters of the universe operators. Those names should be the least of your concerns.
There are liberal capex tax laws being implemented in Canada and the US for mine development, full write off during spend. The permitting regime is being loosened. I have largely focused on Canadian and US names, little in emerging markets. Canadian resources in general will be another haven.
It’s not that I disagree with you, Russ, it’s that I don’t trust the management of most companies enough to want to invest in them
I figure the real money is in STARTING and OWNING a company, not being an employee or a stockholder. Sole proprietorships seem to offer the best return, but partnerships let you take some time off (hoping and praying that everything will still be there when you return).
Also, there seems to be enormous potential for corruption in small business – you almost need to know the owners and operators before you can feel comfortable investing in them, but you never really know where your money is going.
I have concluded that if one cannot start a company, that one’s money is best spent by investing in oneself, one’s knowledge, education, and tools. Saving dollars is crazy, the purchasing power just leaks out as the dollars sit in the deposit. My definition of value does not involve dollars.
Saving up big piles of money is mostly important if you need to defend yourself against some asshole with a big pile of money. We need to address that. Assholes with too much money are the problem. They are distorting the economy. By now everyone can see this but it was not always so obvious.
If we want the economy to work we need to get rid of the assholes. And maybe the money.
I would like to see the return of the original “stock market” – people bringing their eggs, and their chickens, and their fruits and vegetables and other wares to a weekend market and buying, selling, or bartering, as they see fit – no futures, no abstractions, no information blackouts, no non-disclosure agreements, no lawyers – in fact, no government, if possible, other than stall placement and some boundaries to keep everything civilized.
I see the government bending over backwards to please THE stock market and betraying the population who create all the real value that THE stock market drools over. I would like to see roles reversed.
We need to impose some limits to growth. Otherwise we face the genuine risk of living in a cancerous civil society where growth is the only imperative.
Thomas Jefferson, on a related topic:
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”
My modern translation:
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without the Internet, or the Internet without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
My experience with trusting employers and even brothers has been problematic: see https://ca-civ393104.org/ for the tedious details, lol
Plan B, for those of us not invested in the marketplace:
Perimeter
Garden
Chickens
Rice & beans
Solar
Communications
Bullets
Spares
Coinage
It’s not that I disagree with you, Russ, it’s that I don’t trust the management of most companies enough to want to invest in them
I figure the real money is in STARTING and OWNING a company, not being an employee or a stockholder. Sole proprietorships seem to offer the best return, but partnerships let you take some time off (hoping and praying that everything will still be there when you return).
Also, there seems to be enormous potential for corruption in small business – you almost need to know the owners and operators before you can feel comfortable investing in them, but you never really know where your money is going.
I have concluded that if one cannot start a company, that one’s money is best spent by investing in oneself, one’s knowledge, education, and tools. Saving dollars is crazy, the purchasing power just leaks out as the dollars sit in the deposit. My definition of value does not involve dollars.
Saving up big piles of money is mostly important if you need to defend yourself against some asshole with a big pile of money. We need to address that. Assholes with too much money are the problem. They are distorting the economy. By now everyone can see this but it was not always so obvious.
If we want the economy to work we need to get rid of the assholes. And maybe the money.
I would like to see the return of the original “stock market” – people bringing their eggs, and their chickens, and their fruits and vegetables and other wares to a weekend market and buying, selling, or bartering, as they see fit – no futures, no abstractions, no information blackouts, no non-disclosure agreements, no lawyers – in fact, no government, if possible, other than stall placement and some boundaries to keep everything civilized.
I see the government bending over backwards to please THE stock market and betraying the population who create all the real value that THE stock market drools over. I would like to see roles reversed.
We need to impose some limits to growth. Otherwise we face the genuine risk of living in a cancerous civil society where growth is the only imperative.
Thomas Jefferson, on a related topic:
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”
My modern translation:
Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without the Internet, or the Internet without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
It’s time for a change!
My $0.02, YMMV, etc