GOLD

SEE HERE "Good as gold." Well the ultimate commodity from the standpoint of risk is gold. It isn't that gold doesn't change its value because it certainly does, but it had a tendency to never go to zero while some asset classes can do that fairly readily. As fiscal irresponsibility rules the day in Washington gold is getting more and more attractive to many investors who just can't figure out what is going to happen but who feel an ominous drumbeat as Washington does things that seem to bear little on fiscal restraint or common sense. An air of financial pessimism is becoming more common. I'm not all in gold by any means myself (not that my meager investments count for much). I'm currently in Australian dollars, gold, oil, and cash for my personal IRA account. You can probably tell just by that list (oh yeah I'm holding Chinese yuan's too and I'm short U.S. Treasuries) that I'm not real confident that the bulls will win the stock market debate with the bears. But we'll see. I'm no pundit. I do try to track a reasonable sample of those that are and they're not currently a happy lot.