Technology

I recently moved a decent chunk of money to municipal bonds. Is it guaranteed to be safe? No. But it's a good way to wait out chaos. If cities can't pay their debts the market is in really bad shape, but not necessarily vice versa. And it avoids the "everyone sees the economy is about to crash" premium that you're currently paying for precious metals.

My savings are mainly in Gold. Actual physical gold, in a vault, in Switzerland, not some kind of paper gold certificate that's supposedly equivalent to the real thing but in fact is just a contract with a company with all the associated risks of it for a piece of paper that supposedly tracks the value of gold.

That position is a massive rejection of the entire Financial system, Gold being it's own currency and a really old one at that - essentially I'm positioned to counter the devaluation of the very fiat currencies in which investment assets are priced, mainly because I don't trust how they and the nations backing them are managed. (I'm in that position since 2012 and I would say that what's going on in the US is kinda proving that view I've had since then). Putting money in agricultural land would be a similar position, that that has geographical (and thus country and climate) risk plus I'm not quite ready to become a prepper.

So most of my savings are literally outside any main currency such that I'm basically shorting main currencies.

(You see, I worked in the Finance Industry for almost a decade and it's kinda like working in a sausage factory: once you see how they're made you stop wanting to eat them)

Mind you, I have a very long investment horizon - 14 years now and counting, with a return of so far around 500% vs the EUR - and whilst Gold is currently sliding down since its all time peak at the end of January, it's price now back to the level of the start of the year, that's fine when one is sitting on 14 years of gains and not really aiming to take money out until retirement, since in the current fucked up deregulated shit that passes for a Financial System nowadays there will be plenty of financial crisis in the meantime and Gold invariably goes up when shit hits the fan, the worse it is the more it goes up.

If your investment horizon is shorter, things are different.

Now, outside this specific ultra-low risk position I'm in, I'm not going to advise you on specific funds - all that stuff works as legal contracts in that to really know the risks you're taking you have to read the small print plus as we've seen from the changes to the Nasdaq 100 index rules, there's even more contracts under those contracts and they can even change those from under you to fuck you up.

Obviously I'm not gonna read the small print of that for you.

So here's a few more general things you probably should consider:

• Try and go for things that reduce the number of intermediaries between you and the value you're invested in. Every intermediary adds risk (not just of shenanigans but also of them just going bankrupt - a lesson I learned in 2008). Holding physical Gold is maybe a bit extreme but it certainly reduces the number of intermediaries (though I personally use a custodian, accepting the risk added by having that single intermediary).
• By all appearences the cycle of empire for the US is at an end and by all indications China will be next. If you're going with traditional and more liquid investment classes, you might want to be exposed to China stuff. I'm in Europe and, frankly, I suspect Europe will be dragged down by the US - maybe not fall as bad as the US but certainly it's not going to come out unscatted. Keep in mind that the time horizon for it to happen is unclear (maybe some years, maybe one or two decades) - I mean, it's happenning, but not very fast yet.
• Spread your eggs across several baskets: in other words, diversify your investments, even across investment classes, in case something goes wrong. Diversity is robustness. I still have a little actual cash at home (for things like interruption of access to electronic payment systems, like it happenned recently with a long blackout) and money in bank accounts in more than one country (and in different currencies if one counts Gold as a currency).

There's this phrase from the goldbug community (yeah, I know, but sometimes even some of those fanboys have a point) which goes roughly like this: when things get rough it's not the Return On Investment you should worry about, its the Return Of (The) Investment.