Thanks Joe. I held GLD, CEF and GDX when the fed started its QE program and sold in 2011. They all did well during that time period.
My thought is exactly the scenario which you mention, which could prompt GLD and GDX to climb higher and likely SLV as well. But that's assuming this scenario plays out. Who knows? Thanks again for your reply!

First, I've always considered gold a very dicey investment. Some here do not even consider it an investment. It's liable to do anything, including doubling quickly or falling by half just as quickly. I'd be loath to suggest anyone touch it because you can get burnt really badly. Most gold funds invest in miners, not bullion, so it's technically incorrect to consider them the equivalent of gold. They're not, but do tend to benefit when gold rises.
Having said that, OPGSX is my best performer since early September when I bought it (+19%), also my best performer this year (+13%), also my only fund to show green yesterday. This may be simply the Broken Clock Phenomenon playing out. Even perennial laggard HSGFX is up 5% YTD.
My other better performing investments lately have been PRPFX and international bonds (notably RPIBX). Like gold, these types of investments benefit when the dollar weakens or looks like it is about to. Also, fear of both bonds and equities may be driving some investors into these investments.
---
Added: If someone feels gold has a future, I'd be a lot more comfortable with them looking at a fund like HSTRX, which plays around a bit in the metal, but hedges against the kind of potential 25-50% losses gold funds are known for. It's up 3.5% YTD.
Caution: I'm not an expert and probably don't know what I'm talking about.

For information purposes ... Although their long term performance numbers suffer PASAX (All Asset) is down year-to-date -1.7% while PAUAX (All Asset All Authority) is down -0.9%.
Still, I will pass on buying them back.

FYI: (Scroll & Click On Article Title Google Search) "Top Mutual Fund Families"
The top firms in 2015 Barron’s/Lipper Fund Family Ranking avoided the pitfalls of last year. Two leaders: Thrivent Financial and Eaton Vance.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.google.com/#q=top+mutual+fund+families+Barron's
Graphic Look:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/BestFundFamiliesOf2015.pdf
5 & 10 Year Ranking:
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/BestFundFamilies5-YearAnd10-YearRankings.pdf

@PopTart: Here's some food for thought from Barron's.
Regards,
Ted
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2016/02/05/revenge-of-the-gold-bugs-gold-etf-notches-5-weekly-advance-biggest-since-2013/tab/print/

Hi slick. I don't kid myself that the trailing stop is the end-all. I'm hoping that it saves me from big losses more times then not. If it wip-saws me, so be it. Setting a "liberal" as you say stop at 15-20% kind of doesn't make sense to me. If you do that you pretty much lock in a big loss. To me at that point, if you still like the stock, it would be hold 'till it recovers. I have 2 I bought before implementing trailing stop like that. Mistakes, but I'll wait it out.
I can think of 2 examples lately where the trailing stop worked well. I bought AAPL back in late summer at about 110. The stock rose to around 123-124 and then started to trend down. My 6% stop from recent high sold me out at about 117. Not a huge profit but it kept me from a big loss. Apple was in the 90's last I looked.
Another example was CHKP. Bought at 68.5, rode it up to about 88 before it too started to dip. My stop took me out at about 82.5. Nice profit on that one. I like that stock, so I actually bought back in when it kept trending down at about 76. We'll see how that goes.
Those are a couple winning moves. I won't get into the SLB or BABA buys before deciding to use stops.

Tick tock tick tock......
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-02-05/chevron-downgraded-first-time-since-1987

@MikeM: I too have two buckets for stocks, and virtually all of my stocks are in iras, so preserving of capital is not necessarily priority one, although still important. I learned early on that setting a stop loss almost guarantees it will hit it :) My long term stock stop losses were fairly liberal (generally 15-20% down from purchase price) and once hit they went right back above and stayed above there for the most part. Some I bought back, some I let go. My other bucket , some people call spifs, are always 5% or less of portfolio and primarily are composed of 4 or 5 small or midcap stocks. There are not intended to be long term holds, but one or two I have kept for more than one year, but watch very closely. I no longer use stop losses on these either. I just watch them closely, retired.

I believe this is why @junkster prefers low volatility assets so that you have more time without taking deep losses to make a judgment call rather than an automated decision but the idea of having an exit plan is still valid. He can correct me if I am wrong.
I prefer low volatility and trend persistency. That way I can get 100% invested as quickly as possible and capitalize on the compound effect with my account. I can only get that in particular bond fund categories. Also why I stick only with the open end because ETFs are far too volatile for my tastes. I've always been into low volatility and trend persistency. I keyed off certain patterns of such when trading equity funds and even daytrading stock index futures back in the days. Can't trade/invest in individual stocks or baskets of such because of my propensity to ramp up as quickly as possible.

But no worries, when it comes roaring back 40% (at some point TBD) and gets you back to breakeven, Arnott will crow about how, see? Dogmatic adherence to a strategy come hell or high water is a good idea and see -- I was right. No thanks.
I bailed in 2012 (I think) and never looked back. Sounded good on paper, but keeping a 20% equity short position on in the face of Fed intervention and a raging, if not artificially-produced bull market, was inexcusable. Sure, you could by his PAAIX instead that didn't have the short position, but still. The very nature of PAUIX coupled with his dogmatic operation of it, led to this situation. Good riddance!
Arnott's QOTD is pure comedy gold: "“Now that these strategies are a bargain, we’re seeing outflows. It’s human nature.” No, it's your sub-par multi-year performance that lost people money who now can't buy into these 'bargains' and/or are simply fed up with you.

I remember reading many posts on *M about how Arnott was the best thing since sliced bread. I bought into it. Luckily, I didn't lose a lot of money but the fund was very stagnant and didn't sit well with me over time. I'm glad to have bailed out.

Buying individual, stocks to be honest, is just a recent "hobby" for me. I set aside a small bucket to play with. The first thing I learned (after mistakes) was to establish with yourself your mind set for the purchase. My mind-set had to be 1 of 2 categories, buy it and hold it, or speculating to hopefully make a profit over a short or long time. Speculating definitely requires establishing the sell point.
If you want to preserve capital as Junkster said, you must set a trailing-stop on the stock. You have to do that right after your purchase. I decided my method would be the 1% rule. Never loose more than 1% of your stock bucket on any single purchase. For example, if you decide you have $10,000 to invest (or play with in my case) in stocks and spend $2000 on a specific stock, set the trailing stop at 5% (($10,000 x 1%)/$2000) = 5%. Allow the stock to trend up (hopefully) and if it drops 5% from it's recent high - auto sell.
Are there other sell rules people use? Like I said, I'm new at this and really have had mixed results. My worst buys were before implementing the trailing stop - for sure. Still hanging on to my first buy, SLB. Darn stock increased ~20% at one point for me, then lost all that and more. But that helped me learn.

Rally is starting next week! :)
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/05/saut-expects-bottom-next-week-then-stock-rally.html

High Yield Corps - need to see how stocks behave - still a risky trade to me
They have actually bottomed before stocks YTD. At 36% going into today and will be 41% after the close. My friend here who trades like me is much higher. In the past I would have been a lot higher being that we now have had two 9 to 1+ days in one week. Age must be catching up with me Either that or I keep thinking there is another shoe to drop in high yield. But as I have said in the past, I never make money with my thinking.

The dividend yield on HYG for example, and link to stocks risk reward ratio just doesn't work for me at this time.

Good thinking Dex. Although I hope if you do go into junk corps it is with an open end and not an ETF. My latest foray into junk corps was a bust. Sold down to 8% which will be zero at the close. Back to 65% in the junk munis and may go higher today. Actually, it is the CA munis which are leading in 2016. While I may be in the black YTD, still have made several bonehead moves.

Junkster said:
The moral is be you a trader or investor is always have an exit point. So much thought goes into when to buy yet so little on when to sell.
To whom do you think he is addressing this advice?
This was just an observation on money management, nothing more, nothing less. COP was a fave on this board here in the 60s. I don't know how many are still holding tight since then, especially those that touted its purchase based on its fundamentals/dividends. A simple money management strategy based on price would have had you out long before the current fiasco. Unlike so many, I have no pension and only a meager SS of $1019 monthly. Before that I had little to no income outside of the markets. So it is only natural I would be so obsessed with managing losers. I don't have the luxury of other income to ride out the storms in the financial markets.

But no worries, when it comes roaring back 40% (at some point TBD) and gets you back to breakeven, Arnott will crow about how, see? Dogmatic adherence to a strategy come hell or high water is a good idea and see -- I was right. No thanks.
I bailed in 2012 (I think) and never looked back. Sounded good on paper, but keeping a 20% equity short position on in the face of Fed intervention and a raging, if not artificially-produced bull market, was inexcusable. Sure, you could by his PAAIX instead that didn't have the short position, but still. The very nature of PAUIX coupled with his dogmatic operation of it, led to this situation. Good riddance!
Arnott's QOTD is pure comedy gold: "“Now that these strategies are a bargain, we’re seeing outflows. It’s human nature.” No, it's your sub-par multi-year performance that lost people money who now can't buy into these 'bargains' and/or are simply fed up with you.

FYI: Fixed income is one of the untapped corners of the smart beta market, and we should expect to see more fixed income strategies launched in the space, according to a panel at TD Ameritrade Institutional’s National LINC conference on Thursday.
Of the $2 trillion in total ETF assets, one-fifth are in smart beta, or strategic beta, strategies, said Ben Johnson, director at Morningstar. In 2015, there were $69 billion in net new flows into these strategies.
Regards,
Ted
http://wealthmanagement.com/print/markets/next-frontier-smart-beta-fixed-income

@Crash

Junkster said:
The moral is be you a trader or investor is always have an exit point. So much thought goes into when to buy yet so little on when to sell.

To whom do you think he is addressing this advice?
I see no evidence of insider selling. The news was out on multiple wire services by 10:30 and the selling didn't begin until around 11. But if it gives you comfort to think there were nefarious insiders front-running it then so be it. With regard to THE LYING by the COP Management, was that based on guidance given in December, or from something said more recently? This is a rapidly changing story, and a lot has happened since December. As noted in my longer comment on Jan 19, there were some very bad things developing for the oil majors, things that should have caused you to consider that a big dvd cut was possible. So why express shock now, and create a list of grievances (for what end)?
Mr. Market could not give 2 sh*ts about your silly feeeeelings. Perhaps, creating imaginary insiders and perceiving corporate lying is your way of avoiding having to spend a moment to reflect on what has proven to be your unwise decision to purchase COP where you did. O.K., so what? What matters now is what you do now. If you only have a small stake as you stated above, then why in the world are you holding on for one week, to get the dvd? A lot can happen in a week, the way things are going. What if another oil major also reports terrible revenue and cuts their dvd next week? What do you think will happen to COP? Another drawdown. Maybe another 10% off your stock?
The thesis for your purchase has broken. Your principal is at risk; forget about the stinkin' piddly dvd--- IMO, you should DUMP IT, and imagine the current price is the sell price that Junkster suggested that you (should have) set when you purchased it. Stuff happens. :)

"Investors last year pulled a combined $15.8 billion from two mutual funds run by 61-year-old Rob Arnott -- Pimco All Asset and All Asset All Authority-- as their returns trailed most peers for the third straight year. They had Pimco’s most redemptions in 2015 except for Gross’s old fund, the Pimco Total Return Bond Fund, with $54.6 billion in withdrawals."

"Redemptions from All Asset All Authority surpass even Pimco Total Return in percentage terms when looking at their peaks. All Asset All Authority assets are down 76 percent from their 2013 high, to $8.6 billion, compared with Total Return’s 70 percent drop from its all-time high the same year."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-05/bill-gross-investors-aren-t-the-only-ones-pulling-pimco-money

MikeM - I don't know about COP but in the case of another energy company, KMI, shareholder reports were for maintenance of the dividend at it's then current level with growth of that dividend increasing at a 10-16% clip for the next 1-2 years. A month later the dividend was cut by 75% with muted at best growth of that dividend projected. Lie. Lie. lie.