The Obama administration borrowed $82.69 billion in April, 2010.  That’s about $8.90 per day per every man, woman and child in the USA.  In my humble conservative opinion, such deficits have led and will lead to the devaluing of the US dollar, particularly because the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates at artificially low levels.

What is the investor to do?

Gold hit a new high $1241.25 yesterday.  Gold may decline in the short term but it is experiencing a secular bull market because of the inflation of all paper currencies.  I don’t buy gold because I don’t have a safe place to store it and I don’t want to pay an army to guard it.  I’ve instead traded gold mining stocks.  At my discount brokerage, the commissions are lower than for buying and selling gold bullion or coins.   I’ve had a lot of success averaging down and selling off a little at a time as the prices improve.  My best buy was WGI (Western Goldfields), which later became NGD (New Gold), on October 23, 2008, at 88 cents; my ngd is up 183% over my average cost price.

In the last few weeks, since I learned about trading options, I’ve been selling near the money put options of abx and gg (Oct, Jan’11, Jan’12 contracts). If current trends continue, these contracts will all expire worthless (even the ABX put Jan’12 at $45) and I will simply keep the premiums.  When doing this, it is important to reserve sufficient cash or credit to buy the stock at the strike price.  But even if assigned, the purchase of the shares becomes part of the averaging down strategy.  So for example, the $45 January 2012 put on Barrick Gold paid me $8.90 premium.  The average cost price (after commissions) of the shares if assigned then is $36.29–a 22% discount off the current $46 market price.