Letters of the Week

On track
I found Adam Carr’s article Inside Track fascinating. The author doesn't appear in your page on 'The Team’ and I was actually hoping to find out where an investor might be able to access charts such as those. I found the information they contained quite valuable.

– B Dowding

Editor’s response: Thanks for your letter. Our team page has now been updated to include some information about Adam Carr’s background. The charts from the article you mention were actually all put together by Adam himself, but the data, as mentioned in the article, is available from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The slings and arrows of fortune

To call or not to call, that is the question, as Hamlet might have said had he been in the investment business. I couldn't agree with you more, Alan, when last weekend you gently dismissed Bob Gottliebsen's back-slapping "call ahead of its time" praise for your somewhat alarming view of the market's prospects back in late December. I distinctly remember being a bit shaken by your tone on that day and checking outside the front door to see if the sky was in fact falling. Even though your call was a bit premature, and therefore – arguably – not quite on the money, it was still a call that people like me appreciated for its big picture honesty and the fact that you got off the fence that many economists sit on. If readers follow you or Eureka's other excellent commentators like sheep, then they'll probably get shorn. Even your well-informed views have to be accorded the right 'weight', set amongst the barrage of other views, and with the knowledge that if economics is the 'dismal science', then economic predictions really are an educated stab in the dark. Maybe your next big call might be a little less strident, but I hope you will make it, bravely and with wisdom, just the same.

– R Jay

Two directions

Percy Allan’s article A new age of uncertainty defines two very different scenarios about the world economy and particularly whether deflation or inflation will define the global environment in the years ahead. While neither scenario may happen, they are two key possibilities that investors need to consider, as each scenario will destroy accumulated savings, but in very different ways. Prudent, prepared investors need a strategy for each. I would appreciate if Eureka Report would regularly do a report on these scenarios – risk, likelihood, and strategies to prepare for and respond to them.

– R Murray

To read this week’s letters, click here.