the-commercial-investor.com

As I write this I am reading about the Dow losing 7% of its value today … in a single day … mostly in the last hour of trading. This is its sixth triple digit loss in a row … and no one sees an end in sight even though the Fed has pumped over $130Billion into AIG and is starting to lend directly to other companies for the first time since the Depression.

Since the start of 2008 over $8 TRILLION in value has vaporized …

And NONE of it is because of a faltering economy … is is completely due to insanity on the part of investment bankers and their cronies.

And despite all of that … I am not worried …

No … not a bit.

Back in the Tech bubble I had a stock broker and I trusted him and his advice. After all, what he was telling me was the result of all those researchers at Merrill Lynch and I figured they knew what they were talking about.

So I rode the tech bubble to the floor and saw 30% of my retirement funds wither and drop off the vine.

And I vowed I would never let that happen again.

Now we are seeing Sheep in a full panic. No one knows why they are selling except that everyone else is doing it. And they are all violating the “Buy Low, Sell Hi” rule. Everyone is panicking and selling Low.

Since my Dot Bomb “experience”, I have taken a decade to learn and learn and learn about asset classes main street calls “Alternative” … as if they were riskier than their “traditional” investments than are cratering at the moment.

I have spent tens of thousands of dollars learning about Direct Investements … where I purchase a portion of a business that throws off cash and appreciation. I am a Direct Owner along with a number of other investors … the process is called Syndication. At this point I only own about $20K in mutual funds. That is my entire exposure to this insanity on Wall Street. And I am sleeping like a baby.

I own my very own piece of several different companies and cash flowing properties.

• A three pack of producing oil wells
• An online supplement company
• A vending machine company
• Several apartment complexes in areas with growing populations and economies
• A business training company that works mostly with military clients

Now I am not saying this to toot my own horn. I am telling you this to show the difference between Indirect Investments – Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds, ETF’s – and their volatility, and Direct Ownership of income streams.

Only one of the cash flows above is likely to turn down in the recession and only if people stop looking for supplements online when money gets tight. For the rest of them … they don’t care about the Dow or the S&P. They are just as valuable today and their cash flow is just as spendable today as a week ago.

I encourage you to take a look at the direct investments around you and think strongly about not just diversifying between different indirect investment classes … look at direct investments in Commercial Real Estate and other cash streams … get educated … learn how to do due diligence … and think very strongly about diversifying into a portfolio of businesses where you are an actual owner with a direct line to the company’s bottom line and management. It is much like being Warren Buffett on a smaller scale.

Set yourself up to be undisturbed by the pundits and analysts and talking heads and $150 Million golden parachute crooks of our late and great speculative lending/bundling/securitizing bubble of 2008.

And Remember … It’s never as good or as bad as the press would have you think.

AND the dangerous time is at the TOP, not the bottom.

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