"WHEN FASCISM COMES TO AMERICA IT WILL BE WRAPPED IN THE FLAG
AND CARRYING A CROSS." -SINCLAIR LEWIS

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Armageddon Trades

If you've been watching the news lately you've probably heard about how our economy is pretty much in the shitter for the foreseeable future and since none of the genius's running this country could foresee our current situation coming God knows when that will be. But if you're like me you've been wondering what areas of the stock market are sure to at least temporarily increase in value as we begin our long slow whirlpool ride down the tidy bowl; a writer at EconomPic Data thinks about what he'd want and need as the financial world came to an end and discovers that the answer is pretty logical:

My first moves would be to build a bomb shelter, stock up on food (preferably canned), and buy some protection (I'd go with a Taser gun as I would prefer not to actually kill someone). Well, I personally can't think of any pure bomb shelter plays (although the housing index is up over the past three months), but over the past three months; Campbell Soup Co (which also happened to be the ONLY stock in the S&P 500 that was up yesterday) and Taser International are up 16% and 34% respectively. This compares very favorably to the S&P 500, which has struggled and is down 14% over that time frame.


A good friend of mine has several Mormon family members who have months worth of provisions stocked up so that they can ride out the end of days in style but I very much doubt that Jesus was behind all of these lenders extending too much easy credit; he gives his stuff away for free. I myself own a Taser gun and I even have a small survival kit in the trunk of my car but foolishly I have yet to put together a much larger 3 day earthquake survival kit for my house; so I guess if the Big One hits and the shit starts to go down I'll just have to Tase my way out of here. Anyone else know of any good Armageddon trades?

1 comment:

Matt said...

...there's a book I'd like to recommend to you, James. It's called "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" and it is by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He was a "quant" or a trader of complex derivatives back in the 80's and 90's, and he made most of his fortune by investing in rare, highly improbable events. He made most of his money in 1987 when the stock market crashed. It's a really, really great and entertaining read. Talks about how rare and improbable events have shaped the entire world in which we live in, from the internet to 9/11. I highly recommend it. You won't read another investment/philosophy book like it.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp/1400063515