Buy Low, Sell High (Really)

It's all a crap shoot, really. We've had ultra low mortgage rates for 24 months, and still the housing market isn't improving a whole lot. (Then again, it's not falling off a cliff anymore either.) And how we have the Federal Reserve trying to stimulate the U.S. economy with $600 million in "quantitative easing." But will it work enough to bring down the unemployment rate and stimulate housing, which hopefully (now, let us pray) will lead to a tidal wave of improvement in the U.S. economy? We won't know for several months, really. In the meantime, rates are falling a bit, which means bond prices are rising. And stocks are rising too -- even bank and mortgage insurance stocks. But the markets cannot be fooled for long. If QE doesn't work, investors may cash in their chips big time, booking profits. And then where will we be? Answer: back in cash and gold. But note this: gold is rising too. As my colleague Stephen Pizzo likes to point out: We're all just whistling by the graveyard.