Why listen to the media? Be a contrarian!

I've had many people ask the question, "why not buy gold?". I have responded, "well we are going to have deflation." Most people will immediately conclude that I must be delirious or not know what I'm talking about because I am 21 years of age and that doesn't qualify me as an educated individual. They say, "well the news says we all need to be worried about inflation." This is ludicrous. Do you always believe what's reported on the news? Remember this article from CNN on September 4, 2002?:

Experts: Iraq has tons of chemical weapons

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As some in the Bush administration press the case for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, weapons experts say there is mounting evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has amassed large stocks of chemical and biological weapons he is hiding from a possible U.S. military attack.

As we all know that was a scam and a half. What about investing? How good are the mainstream investing services at say, predicting the price of gold. As of right now all of them are screaming, "BUY GOLD!!!" Let's take a look a their track record. The picture below is the cover of Barron's Commodities Corner from February 12th 2001.

As you can see Barron's wasn't very bullish on Gold in early 2001. They were telling people to sell gold, get out before the next big plunge. How did they do? Not very good. Let's check out a chart of gold prices.


As you can see gold bottomed exactly 4 days after the Barron's article came out. Anyone selling gold because of this article made a rather large mistake. Let's see how gold has performed since that day.



As you can see since February 16th 2001 gold has rallied 425%. Barron's really made a good call. Not! The point I'm trying to emphasize is just because people on TV tell you to do something doesn't mean you should do it. They are wrong more often than not. Why? Because they broadcast stories late. They jump onto trends after they have exhausted themselves. The media is not forward looking. They report what is happening now, not what is likely to happen in the future, and because of that they are of no value to me.

When the media tells me to buy gold I immediately want to sell gold. Investing 101, buy low and sell high. Gold is toying with all time highs as we speak. I want to be a seller right here.