Banks, tanks and crocks of gold

Well the collapse in gold proved to be as spectacular as predicted. Extreme volatility as the commodity bulls battled it out with the sellers - the FTSE jarred by a massive selloff of miners, otherwise it might have been up 50 pts. What a day! Flash is too tired to post a proper blog but in lieu of that here's quite an amusing exchange - if you follow the sequence of events and posts as Thursday unfolded. Flash's fund is now up 300% from February. Not a bad return at all. He's cut back the risk in his portfolio and is running just a few dow longs, a couple of S and P longs, a Nasdaq long and most of the aforementioned equities (although Workspace group collapsed today, he's planning to buy some more shares while they're cheap), and the short EUR/USD, short GBP/USD and short EUR/JPY trades. And still short gold from 977!!! Picked up some bank shares today - HBOS - risky, Lloyds TSB and more Barclays. Gold at $720? Possible. Perhaps even $650. Getting very bullish on equities, particularly large cap, resilient big retail brands which look pretty cheap. Even Woolworths! The only things (and they're big things) that might stop the Dow is, in Flash's view, yet another major financials car crash or more middle-east/caucasus trouble. But with inflation the top news headline and recession splashed all across the papers, Flash's attention is turned more to what happens post-slowdown. That's why he's buying as many equities as he can lay his grubby paws on. Even Crocs went up today. So that's some sort of a sign.