OT: any financial analysts/planners here?

If you are in that field then tell me what I could invest in to protect myself from a sinking dollar.
Oil futures?
Oil company stocks?
Gold, Silver? (gold is over priced now)
Food companies that are traded?
Give me some intelligent info please.

GUNS AND AMMUNITION

Don't panic. Back up and think about the fundamentals. Oil, oil companiees, gold, and silver are all overpriced right now because of speculation. That "sinking dollar" story is a scam to help the speculators take your money away from you.

Your best bet it to take a long-term approach and diversify based on advice from a fee-based planner (not me) who will take the time to understand your situation.

You can't eat them, can't wear them, and they won't keep you warm, but we may all need them.

I already have that area covered.

More is better.

You need to read some info that I have been studying, such as: the dollar continues to sink against the Euro and the treasury dept continues to run massive deficits. That cannot continue forever. 14.3 trillion in the hole. The US GDP is 14 trillion per year.
The politicians can and will do whatever they need to do to get reelected, that means spend/give/promise everything to the voters.
The entitlements are breaking the USA, Soc. Sec. Medicare, Medicaid, Foreign aid, welfare, food stamps, and of course the BS spending that is so ridiculous.

Remember when Ross Perot used to say that giant sucking sound.......Well it may be the US economy going down the toilet.

As an amateur investor one book I would recommend is:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Guide-Investing/dp/039332639X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303942223&sr=1-2">Random Walk Guide to Investing</a>

It is written in a manner that does not require an economic degree to understand the terminology.

Also listen to past shows of Marketplace Money (the weekend editions) from American Public Media <a href="http://marketplace.publicradio.org/"> Marketplace </a> esp. when they answer caller questions.

Both these sources should point out the flaws in trying to "ride the trend" or "get rich quick".

The Chineese Yuan.

Yep guns and ammo and then more guns and ammo. Pretty much now days noticing is 100% even having a saving account at a bank can loose you $$ is you do not read the fine print

FWIW NOTHING I Talked to my Broker today whom I trust, I had bought Silver last summer at $23 and it was $46 so we decided to SELL (figured the bubble was getting high may burst) and took profit and bought Copper and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) a fund he recommended as they may be growing big time. This is pure risky play and investment money, NOT an income source which we keep safe and insured type of money accounts.

John T

Well, many years ago, a nut who belonged to the same local fire company as i did, always said i buried my excess cash in tin coffee cans out in the back yard, but, the cans rusted away and the moles ate the cash!
Now, the plastic coffee cans don't rust, rot, or deteriorate, and the moles don't like the taste of 'em! So, there ya go--the safest place to put yer cash! When your bank goes "belly-up", you will still have the money to keep ya going. By: Rusty Jones, the Wizard!

Gee,my edward jones broker recommended,GM stock,
worldcom and BP stock.I'm down about 10 grand now.He's now recommending the putnam fund.I think the banks .6 % sound pretty good.

Copper is the new gold. Starbucks looks good for the commomn stock group. SD farmland is steady at 12 % increase per year for the last 12 years.

Just heard investor Jonathon Hoenig, that calls himself "the capitalist pig" say two things. One, silver is on the rise big time because its affordable, whereas gold is no longer. I used to know a guy that took hi wife and two kids on a two week family vacation to like Florida, California, wherever from Indiana, financed entirely from silver that he'd pick up from garage sales beginning about a month before vacation. He'd start searching for silver about a month before vacation, and...every year. So per Jonathan Hoenig, silver is a great place to begin.

Then believe it or not, he said the Mexican Peso because EVEN it is rising swiftly against the devaluating dollar. He gave the 3 letter acronym in the stock market that it is found under. To be honest with you though, and this goes back a couple of years ago when the big talk was a single currency for North America called the "Amero", if most can remember that, I had heard that if we went t the "North American Amero", that Mexico would benefit the most, because the value of their currency, would instantly be raised to the same as the US and Canada through the Amero, and that Canada would be hurt the worst because they would nose dive to the same level as us and Mexico. But then, that was a couple of years ago when there was talk of the "Amero", and long before our Time Magazine Man Of The Year, Ben Bernanke from the Federal Reserve Bank went into overtime printing our dollar with no backing, building for huge deficit spending and inflation, making our dollar worthless. Forget about Canada, if I were even Mexico, I'd be saying no to the Amero, because if I were them I wouldn't want to be taking on the US debt currently being incurred.

True story. Couple of decades ago I worked at a trading floor exchange in Chicago. Had a neighbor that worked trading floor security, which was one of the lowest paid jobs at the exchange. He was a friendly guy, got to know brokers in passing. One day a broker gives him an inside tip, and asked the fella if he could come up with $1,000, which was big for what he got paid, but he did. Next day gave the broker that $1,000 and the second that Mexican telecom went public as expected for like a penny a share, he invested the whole thing for him. It closed for like a dime per share that same day, so his one day investment grew to $10,000. By the end of the week, it closed at $10 a share, my neighbor, nice guy working for not much more than minimum wage became a millionaire. Now, that broker took pity and care on this guy, thankfully, but my experience dealing with brokers in backrooms? I have a low opinion of them. But, my neighbor won, and I'm happy for him.

Mark

I"m sorry ss and medicare are paid into. not entitlements.
medicaid, welfare and corporate subsidies are entitlements.
and I believe you have to help the down and out.
corporate on the other hand should live and die from the free market all nnalert want. here in ia they want to cut property taxes for commercial property by 40 percent and tack it on to residential.
then they are giving some company millions in breaks to create 89 jobs. wow thats going to help the economy.

Again, I warn you not to buy into the sucker stories. Those people like taking away your money.

I listened to a professional financial planner. Set myself back 15 years. Should continued following my own advice of paying down the mortgage with double payments. Instead borrowed, invested and am still paying for worthless stocks.

For me personally I like tax exempt municipal bonds. No federal income tax and, here home state issued bonds have no state tax. Is it fool proof, no, but its the best strategy I've found. Right now I've got bonds paying from 4.6 to 6.5 purchased in the last year. Mostly power generation projects and airports. Inflation can hammer me good on yields but right now I like them better than anything going. I do check the credit rating of the municipality before purchasing. Currently using a broker with Raymond James and Associates out of Memphis. I've also been doing some private paper. Vehicle loans, first mortgages, and a couple of personal notes. Risk is a lot higher but so is the rate. Current yield is running from a low of 4.0 on a 4 year balloon payoff first mortgage on a 20 year schedule to an insurance company agency up to a high of 12.25 on a vehicle loan. I'd rather invest in real things than putting voodoo paper into voodoo paper.

Pay off any and all debt, buy tangible assets, land, rent house's etc. Any money invested in commodities or the stock market has to be considered long term as all those markets are subject to varying degrees of fluctuation, investing in commodities is always risky but investing when they are at their historical highs is doubly so, one thing is for sure, oil, gold, corn, cattle etc. will all come down in price at some point.

I agree, pay off all debt and start packing cash in the bank and in your pocket. Back down on any 401K contributions as to only get any company match you can get but no more. Consider putting some in a roth IRA and even keeping that in a money market even if it only pays 1% interest. It might not sound like much but it beats losing 50% of your hard earned money on unpredictable worthless stocks. The stock market has turned into a corrupt game of traders skimming off wealth by doing day trades all day. Insider trades. What a rip off. Even if you took $100,000 dollars and invested it in the stock market and it grew to $150,000 before you wanted to withdraw it most all of your profits would be eaten up by taxes and fees. If you withdrew it before the age of 59 1/2 you will pay about 33% in taxes and 10% in penalty. 44% of your $150,000 would be gone or $66,000 would dissappear leaving you with $84,000, less than the original $100,000 you put in there! Might better take the 100 grand and put it in the bank at 1% and have over $110,000 in ten years. I've been investing in different funds for 30 years and the best return I've ever got was just keeping my cash from my job and not investing it in anything! I have land and hopefully that will always have some value. I've never met a man that had too much cash but I know a lot of people that own a lot of worthless materialistic junk and have NO money and a huge house payment.

There are lot of scammers out there.

Like someone said, tangible assets will be good and maybe foreign stocks, like European.

How is SS not an entitlement?

SS is the biggest scam of the US federal government and it is run like $hitt.
SS will be broke by 2025.

Some years ago I told my Ed Jones broker that I thought it's time to buy precious metals, on my own I would have. He said that's a terrible idea and talked me out of it. Like it's his money. They take commissions and none of the risk, to give bad advice. I think it takes a special breed to be in that business.

I'm no 'professional' planner but bought US Silver Eagle coins at $12 each 3 years ago now they are over $50 each against the advise of most
of the 'professionals' Usually to make $$$ you have to go directly against 'conventional wisdom'.
Right now I'm buying anything that most people need in their daily lives but only when I find
it at bargain prices.With the US Dollar inflating out of control the next logical step is a shortage of goods especially imported and if you find them they will be priced very high to compensate the loss of value of the US Dollar.Most people have a hard time understanding the concept of the Dollars they hold are being reduced in value everytime the Fed increases the Money Supply.

States and cities will be going bankrupt and into default at record rates as the Federal $$$$ dries up.Be very careful which you buy.Nothing in states like California and New York are safe.Also longterm bonds paying 6.5% are losers right now as the US Dollar lost about 10% of its value in the last year and that percantage will accelerate as the value drops.Silver on the other hand has gone up around 75% in the last year.

Really? Wachovia for example in 08 was selling at
$140 a share it was sold to Wells Fargo for $1 share.Silver was $7-$8 an oz now its around $50 so who were the smart investors? The same people that were wrong in 08 are again going for stocks the people that were right like Jim Rogers and Peter Schiff are still going for metals and commodites.Who would you believe?

Chartered Canadian banks... particularly RBC or BNS.
I'm no financial planner.... but those two have consistently made money, quarter after quarter, year upon year since I don't know when. It may not be a huge return every year but it sure is steady.... and as far as I'm concerned... quite safe.

Rod

Every insurance salesman and stockbroker wants to call himself a financial planner or advisor now, and they are the most honest of the scammers.

I keep getting offers to sell investments to my clients but that doesn't pass my "smell test". My conscience would not let me advise someone to invest in something, and then start a sales pitch to sell them what I just advised them to buy.

It's always good to own a house and some land. Guns and farm equipment are always good since they can make you more self-sufficient. Foreign stocks are still more risky than US stock since you have currency exchange risk in addition to business risk.

The US dollar is still the world's safety currency even though that doesn't always seem like a reasonable thing.

SS is a classical Ponzi scheme. The money that comes in from workers "new investors" goes to pay off the retirees and other "earlier investors" and in the SS case lots of the earlier investors get a lot more than they ever paid in.

Still, SS is not that far out of balance if (BIG IF) the taxes paid in and benefits paid out are rebalanced every few years.