I recently did an interview with John Thomas (a.k.a. The Mad Hedge Fund Trader) that is now available over at his Hedge Fund Radio website, so, if anyone’s interested in hearing what I sound like these days, this is your chance. Here’s the intro:
Tim Iacono, is a man who lives without stocks. He does this from a remote mountain top in rural Bend, Oregon, where he has the luxury of spending his days researching long term trends in the financial markets. Maybe it is the incessant rain that keeps him working indoors so long, sifting through the grains of data he pulls off the Internet.
Whatever Tim is doing, it is working. It was his spot on calls on precious metals and commodities during the “naughties” that has enabled him to live this sought after lifestyle. When his research led him to conclude that real estate was careening off a cliff, he sold his California properties and made the move north. His successes led him to launch a blog in 2005 and an investment website in 2006. Today, The Mess Greenspan Made boasts 26,000 followers at the aggregator site www.seekingalpha.com.
With the exception of the odd commodity producer or gold mining shares, Tim has completely avoided investing in paper securities for the past decade. He believes that stocks are still in a secular bear market that has at least a few more years to play out. When government stimulus runs its course later in the year we could be in for another downdraft as severe as the debacle that ensued in 2008-2009.
Maybe it’s me, but I didn’t think my outlook was quite that negative. It’s been a while since I’ve done any sort of an interview and this one was certainly fun as John not only has one of those smooth radio voices (even with a cold when we spoke), but he’s pretty funny too.
![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
Thanks, Tim, that wais a great interview. Very informative.
Will share with my son, who is a business major.
One thing I could not understand is your rationale about why you’d stop selling covered calls for GLD at $1,300-1,400 and John’s comment on losing half of your profit during the last trade because of the rise in implied volatility. I thought that selling covered calls is a rather safe way to play the asset. Are you saying you’d liquidate all your gold-related positions at that price point?
I don’t know what he meant in his comment – didn’t make sense to me then and it doesn’t now, but, that’s not the sort of thing that you stop to clarify in the middle of the interview.
As for my not selling covered calls beyond $1,300-$1,400, that has to do with holding two distinct positions in gold – one as a long-term holding and one using funds that would otherwise be held as cash but trying to earn a better return on those funds than in other short-term investments.
Since the downside risk is unlimited when selling covered calls, if gold reaches a new high this spring, I’d expect it to then undergo a typical correction, at which time I’d stand aside and wait to begin the process again when prices have settled down a bit.
Thanks, this is helpful. Just to confirm, “stand aside and wait to begin the process again” means exiting both positions, including the underlying asset?
Yes, you let your shares get “called out” during what is hopefully the last move upward.
Have you done any other interviews that are available on the net?
There are a few out there – here’s one from 2008:
http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2008/09/im-on-radio.html
This link works:
http://www.iaconoresearch.com/BlogImages/0913-04.mp3
Thanks much!
cool
Oh, and I think you’re right; software developers/engineers rock!
Incessant rain, in Bend, OR? That must be North Bend, over on the coast, and not Bend in central OR. The latter has a High Desert Museum, south of town.
I don’t think John knew that Oregon has a dry side and a wet side.