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Hi Patrick and the rest of the forum,

How are you all these days? Life as a homesteader in Hogsback has been bliss, but one does need to travel to the big cities every now and again to keep up with clients etc.

With the poor performance of the stock market in 2022 has your view on investing changed at all? Do you think the stock market will always go up regardless? I personally feel that we're in much trickier waters these days and that stock market returns are going to be down to around 5-8% pa for a while still. Inflation is here to stay, especially when basic income grants really start kicking in. The socialists would love for inflation to kill the wealth of the 1%.

Hope that all is well your side, wherever you folks may be hiding out these days.

I studied mining engineering but left SA in late 90's and commoditised the international coal market in early 2000's. Made plenty of cash working in commodities (trading and investment banking) but I spent most of it on travelling the world, sex, drugs and booze. The rest I just wasted. I also ploughed millions into property in the UK just before the 2008 financial crash. C'est la vie!

I don't have millions to my name any more but I have something far more important. Something that people who are only rich really, really hate. A lifestyle that cannot be bought with money! This involved me moving to live off-grid and being able to grow and eat all our own food, for free! Plus we get a greater and greater surplus every year. I've never been healthier, drinking our own spring water, and our cow and goat milk. Chopping wood has added muscle mass, dropped my cholesterol, and keeps us warm in the winter (for free). Now I value wealth on the quality of your soil and water resources. And how much freedom you have from not paying monthly bills, and not having to deal with the government, or traffic, or mad crowded shopping malls, or a crowded subway or tube. I can go mountain biking or trout fishing in the mountains at the drop of a hat, and some of the best beaches in the world are an hour and a half away. We also ski (partially) in the winter.

Yes, Hogsback is in SA and the country is likely to implode at some point. But I've been to most countries in the world and our lifestyle, plus the chance to work with eager, young black Africans who are trying to change their lives for the better is incredible. We have some of the friendliest and happiest people in the world, who are also some of the poorest. I suspect there's a lesson there somewhere. The biggest concern to our safety is if govt. were to stop paying social grants, and/or our farmers stopped producing staple, affordable foodstuffs. But hey, the whole world is fubared and the USD is on the brink of collapse. Hence why the ZAR continues to strengthen even as the country continues to be downgraded.

The most amazing thing.... Our 10 acres of country bliss cost us R900,000. Of course I've ploughed some more cash in over the years but the question was how to create a firm financial foundation. Get out of the expensive cities and start living a less fragile, more self-sufficient, and ultimately much happier lifestyle. It's tough, especially in the beginning. But it's so much more rewarding in the end...

Hi Kobus, congrats on starting a business and best of luck to you guys going forward. One way to get really rich is to build wealth as an entrepreneur and create something useful, rather than just shuffling shares around.   

Agriculture is a vital industry but also hugely tough. Maize and cattle farmers for instance are battling commodity markets, droughts and ever rising costs of seed, fertilizer, diesel etc. Then there's theft, safety etc. and of the course the usual years of feast and famine.

The problem as I see it is that farmers are battling Nature, instead of working with her. Farmers are farming debt as they seek to take on ever larger acreage and try for increased yields with the GMO seed salesman. Regenerative farmers are re-learning what we used to know hundreds of years ago i.e. don't throw chemical fertilizers on your land which only leach your soils; practise diversity and multi-crop horizons so you don't end up sterilising your soil; use things like inoculated biochar to improve soil water retention and build up your soil food web. Even if you're a plain old mealie farmer, understand which companion plants will help increase yields, and naturally fight pests, so that you don't have to waste money on expensive and unnecessary fertilisers and pesticides.

There are several hi-tech sensing devices from drones to tractor-based, and I'm sure they all have their uses. However, the farmer who really understands Nature should not be farming with such Homo Sapiens like precision. Instead, they should observe and be guided by Nature as she will always know far more than any Sapiens programmable device that says "whack more Nitrogen here", completely ignoring all the other inter-related factors. On the other hand, if you can start to build the language of Nature and the Elements, the seasons, and plant, tree and fungi inter-networks into your device then I reckon you're onto a winner!

We must protect the soil that protects us. Soil is going to become our No.1 commodity going forward i.e. increased flooding and removal of top-soil is one of the biggest survival threats that we as a species face. Unless we all want to eat hydroponically-grown lettuce for the rest of our lives... ugghh!

Hi Bevan, with the amount of money printing, I have been long gold for a while now. I think it's still a good place to be, although it's come off in the past week.

Interestingly gold has not sold off like equities have these last few days. This is an emerging sign of the strength building up in the gold market. Also, it's interesting that the "unobtainium" premium in physical gold and silver is getting larger and larger i.e. the premium you have to pay to hold your own physical gold vs. something like an ETN (which tracks gold price performance) or an ETF (which is backed by someone else's gold in a vault somewhere).

When the sh1t finally hits the fan, the unobtainum premium will go through the roof whilst the gold price itself over time will do just a little bit better than inflation. Crypto fanatics also talk about BTC etc. having their own unobtainium premiums but that has to be factored against the fact that crypto won't necessarily be desirable in an economic emergency. There just hasn't been enough widespread adoption of it, whilst gold and silver can easily be used as cash-equivalents when the need arises - after all they have played this role superbly in the past before.

It's been a pretty amazing stock rally these last two weeks but we are now quite extended and overbought. The monthly chart for SP500 is the highest ever overbought MACD ever, about twice as extended as that in 2007 / 2008. But of course this is simply a sign of the volatility and massive energy that has flowed into markets in the last couple of years.

Every man, woman, binary and their dogs and cats are long the stock market. The amount of QE and easy money that has flowed into markets is truly stupendous. There will of course be the inevitable correction and these will likely be quite volatile too.

A correction could be imminent in the next few days. I note that the VIX index has been climbing the last couple of days for no apparent reason i.e. it should be going down as stock markets keep going up. Gold is also turning back up after its recent sell-off. So I suspect the clever money may be gearing up for something. (I have an emerging theory that the massive index funds could be pushing markets down before the monthly buy-in around the 1st - but of course this will end in tears if true, as the front-runners will cause havoc and even more volatility).

Either way, I'm now out of all stocks, gold, crypto etc. and keeping my powder dry for now.

Nothing really to report here, other than stocks (as represented by the Dow, I should probably use the SP500 instead) are peaking on this latest rally. However, whilst active traders might look to take profits and look for a re-entry point later on, one NEVER ever shorts stocks when both short-term momentum and trend (signal) are in positive territory, as they are on all of a daily, weekly and monthly chart.

Of course, downside surprises can come at any time but for now it's probably safe to let your capital stay long in stocks, if it's lazy capital. If it needs to work instead, then take profits on stocks and go into something with a bit more volatility like BTC or ETH, which could work for those who can handle a faster heart rate. Both are due for another pop higher, probably over the weekend. Of course, LINK is the new golden child on the crypto front and it "should" continue to outperform in the short term, as greed keeps looking for those 10-bagger returns.

Gold saw its arse handed to it after the dumb money poured into the trade above $2,000 and it hit global news headlines. Now I expect sideways range bound trading as the wind is blowing against the current, creating choppy price action. Definitely one to sit out for now. We will probably only see another big run towards Oct / Nov time when stocks look most likely to wobble again.

Stock futures a little wobbly this morning... may have spoken a little too early yesterday in recommending to start buying. However, this is always the risk when predicting moves based on momentum.

- Try get in too early by predicting the move and you can sometimes get flipped as momentum fails to break in the expected direction
- Wait for the confirmation of the momentum move and you can often miss the big move

C'est la vie. This is where experience, patience and discipline come in. No one should ever blindly throw themselves into any trade. Rather, build your macro trade view up based on the conjunction of monthly, weekly, daily charts etc. and what momentum, market stretch, sentiment etc. are doing. Then, work on your timing of your trade entry to get the best possible price.

Remember that you should always patiently time your entry into a trade. But never be slow in getting out of a trade! Get out immediately if it has hit your stop loss and /or trailing take profit levels. Then never look back.

So this morning is giving much better entry levels to go long stocks. Thus, it's probably best to sit and watch market sentiment on the futures, news etc. to decide when to get in. Always wait for the afternoon session when the Dow is open to trade, and especially wait for after major market news events e.g. non-farm payrolls, crude oil releases, interest rate changes etc.

Although I'm less confident than I was yesterday that stocks are going to break up strongly now into August, I still think we will see a rally. It all depends on price action over the next two days....