What a year it’s been.
Stocks posted their biggest gains since 1997, bonds ended their 30-year bull market, gold prices fell the most in 32 years and the Federal Reserve printed a trillion dollars to prop up the economy.
Let’s have another look at the best and worst of 2013 through the eyes of Money and Markets editors in a selection of their finest articles.
Weiss Group founder Martin Weiss takes readers on a tour into the past to answer questions on interest rates — for which many investors would pay good money for a reliable crystal ball — in the article Your Trip on my Time Machine. Dr. Weiss visits five critical periods of the past, returns for a “reality check of the even more incredible present-day reality,” and winds up with a “quick trip into the future to see, first hand, a scenario that we believe is absolutely unavoidable.”
In The Most Dangerous Conspiracy Theory of all Time, Dr. Weiss writes about a cabal that is not a theory, not a secret, but is global and a known menace to society. “History shows that, in the end game, this conspiracy invariably leads to economic collapse, mass unemployment, chronic poverty, the unraveling of social institutions, even mass famine and revolution.”
Back in January, editor Mike Burnick looked at last year’s underperformers and asked Will the Dogs of the Dow Hunt in 2013? “The Dow Dogs may not always be an investor’s best friend, but it’s a clear-cut, conservative strategy worth considering for higher-than-average dividend income while you wait for long-term capital gains,” Burnick writes. It’s something to think about as we head into 2014.
Bucking conventional wisdom to “buy in May and go away,” Burnick told readers at that time why The Trend is Still Your Friend. “As a stock or the market’s uptrend becomes established, more investors are attracted by the positive performance and jump on board to follow the trend,” Burnick writes. And right he was: The S&P 500 Index kept going up, gaining almost 30 percent for the year.
All-Weather Investor Editor Douglas Davenport argues in There’s No End in Sight for the Bull Market in Stocks that the upswing is likely to continue.
Davenport explains in The Fed, Fearing Japan-Style Inflation, Will Keep Printing Money why the central bank wasn’t going to aggressively taper its latest quantitative-easing program.
Master Trader Editor J.R. Crooks isn’t channeling Alfred E. Neuman in What, Me Worry? Yes, Investors, You Ought to Be Scared. He’s looking beyond the borders of the U.S. to Europe and China to urge caution.
Crooks argues that corporations and their heads aren’t just looking to help the country when they sit down at the table with Washington’s elite in Bank CEOs Head to Washington to Save Their Bonuses.
At the end of each year, Safe Money Report Editor Mike Larson sits down to reflect on lessons learned for the coming one. See what this year taught him in Three Key Lessons to Learn from a Wild 2013.
In Dot-Coms and Bonds Aren’t so Different After All, Larson applies the technology bubble to the bond market: “All you have to do is ‘follow the money,’ and you’ll see the bond bubble is even bigger than the late-’90s stock-market mania,” he writes.
And even With Stocks at a Record High, It’s Still a Great Time to Buy, Weiss Million-Dollar Ratings Portfolio Editor Don Lucek wrote in December after looking at the big picture.
Looking forward, Real Wealth Report Editor Larry Edelson gives some tips on surviving what he says will be “a period where everything you thought you knew, everything you worked hard to create and save, will be turned upside down” in 2014: The First Year of the 21st Century Dark Ages.
It hasn’t been a good year for gold, and back in October, Edelson explained why it won’t get better soon in The Truth About Gold that No One Else Will Tell You.
Park Avenue Society Editor Bill Hall asks readers to forget everything they know about investing and, instead, to think of investments as if they were farmers in How You Can Beat the Stock Market by Becoming an Egg Farmer.
In I’m Predicting Lower Bond Yields, and History Is on My Side, Hall advised investors back in August not to give up on their bond investments.
Freedom and Prosperity Editor Charles Goyette’s podcast interviews with Ron Paul were a new addition to Money and Markets this year. Check out the link to hear what Paul has to say about NSA spying, the electronic currency bitcoin and much more.
Happy New Year and God Bless,
The Money and Markets Team
