| By Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – What the hell…? Today, we scratch our heads… along with millions of others all over the globe. Is America’s president crazy like a fox? Or something else…? But we’ll come back to that in a minute… Back Into Whack First, Спасибо. We only know one word in Russian… and that’s it. And it seems like the right one. It means “thank you.” Chris Mayer – our old friend, investment guru, and now manager of Woodlock House Family Capital – helps us with an investment strategy based on “reversion to the mean.” In other words, you buy where prices are out of whack. You make money when they go back into whack. Most people want to be in the best-performing markets; we look for the worst ones. Those are the ones that go back into whack and make you money. Companies go broke and disappear. Just as humans spend more time dead than alive, all businesses are doomed to fail. So when you see a company whose stock has gone way down, you better check its pulse before you buy the stock. But countries take much longer to disappear. And, over time, a dollar earned by a Finnish company ought to be worth about as much as a dollar earned by one in Sri Lanka. So, if today you can buy the dollar of earnings from a Finnish company for $10… and the dollar of earnings from the Sri Lankan company for $20… it’s a fair bet that the price action will eventually bring the two closer together rather than further apart. | Recommended Link | | “I only have two options: win $70K or be ‘shamed’” Hi, my name is Larry Benedict. In basketball, we call it “leaving everything on the court…” That’s what I’m going to be doing on Wednesday, December 11th… I’m going to give you my 100% best effort as I trade for charity… My objective: to use my method – which has served me well over the years – to generate $70,000 or more in a single trading day. If I win, all the money goes to a local charity. If I lose, well, I fully expect to be heckled and shamed. To reserve your seat online to watch the show… | | | -- | Spasibo! Take two energy companies. If you want to buy $1 of annual earnings from Exxon, you’ll pay about $20. But the cost for a dollar’s worth of earnings at the Russian equivalent, Gazprom, is only about 3.5 bucks. Which is the better deal? We don’t know. And you’d probably be well advised to look more closely to find out how the two got so distant in the first place. Not wanting to do that kind of tedious research… and not having much confidence in our own guesswork… we simplify: We just buy the world’s cheapest stock markets. Last January, for example, Chris recommended five of the world’s worst-performing markets: Russia, Turkey, Germany, Greece, and South Africa. We don’t have any idea what is going on in these countries. Nor have we any opinion about the state of the economy or the stock market of each. But our Russian ETF rose 27% this year. Spasibo! Greece was an even bigger winner, with stocks up 34%. But we don’t know how to say “thank you” in Greek. On the other hand, Germany and South Africa get no thanks. The former gained 9%. The latter canceled it out with a 10% loss. And Turkey was… well… a turkey. It lost 21%. Overall, not bad. Next month, Chris will recommend another five terrible markets. We’ll let you know what they are in January. | Recommended Link | | Judge Pirro’s Latest Interview Is Going VIRAL One of the top news anchors in America just went on-camera to expose a huge story. When word spreads about what she’s uncovered – it could trigger an equally huge move in the stock market If you haven’t seen her interview… which details a sector of the market that could soar 37x in the months ahead, click this link to watch it now. | | | -- | Ardent Admirers So, let’s turn back to our subject du jour. We like a joke as much as anyone. And we appreciate satire and ridicule more than most. As for Mr. Trump’s natural gift for it, we are an ardent admirer. But as a moqueur, our president is in a class by himself… or else he’s just a complete moron. You decide. First, his trade war with the Chinese is turning out to be as eternal and as pointless as the War on Terror. Here’s the latest, from the horse’s mouth: I have no deadline, no. In some ways, I think I think it’s better to wait until after the election with China. In some ways, I like the idea of waiting until after the election for the China deal. But they want to make a deal now, and we’ll see whether or not the deal’s going to be right; it’s got to be right. Not content to have clipped the U.S. consumer for billions in import taxes and higher prices with his spat with the Chinese, Trump took on the Brazilians and the Argentines on Monday, on the grounds that their currencies had gone down. He tweeted: Brazil and Argentina have been presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies. which is not good for our farmers. Therefore, effective immediately, I will restore the Tariffs on all Steel & Aluminum that is shipped into the U.S. from those countries. With 50% inflation, it would have been impossible for the gauchos to prevent the peso from falling. As for the Brazilian real, it goes up and down. And if it is going down against the dollar now, it is as much the fault of the U.S. as Brazil. | Recommended Link | | (Bizzarro World) Fed nominee launches his own cryptocurrency! But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a bigger story coming… And it could forever change the way you save, spend, invest, and retire. Consider yourself warned. This story is unfolding quickly… And once it hits the mainstream, it’s going to be too late… You can get all the details you need to prepare for this massive change – as well as profit from it – by clicking the button below. | | | -- | Big Joke Currencies go up and down all the time… often against the desires of the governments that issue them. Why this should trigger a retaliatory tax on American importers of steel and aluminum is in the realm of parody… not policy. Then, as if to extend the joke, yesterday Mr. Trump decided to aim his trade war artillery at the French, specifically putting taxes on 65 French product categories – including wine, cheese, handbags, beauty products, and tableware. What is it about camembert that threatens U.S. national security? What did the French do to incur the wrath of POTUS? They imposed a 3% tax on online sales, which some big American retailers doing business in France – such as Amazon and Expedia – will have to pay. In other words, according to The Donald, France may not tax companies doing business in France… not without his say-so. As he put it in a news conference yesterday: They are American companies, I don’t want France taxing American companies. I’m not going to let people take advantage of American companies. If anyone is going to take advantage of American companies, it’s going to be us. Trade War Bazooka Let’s see, we’ve been doing business in France for 25 years. Every year, we pay our taxes… just like every other business doing business there. And not just in France. We have operations in 11 foreign countries. Not one of them has ever exempted us from local taxes because we are Americans. And never once did it occur to us that we should be taken advantage of exclusively by the U.S. government. Here at the Diary, we do not give advice. But this seems like a special case… If Mr. Trump has any friends left in Washington, they should take away his trade war bazooka before he hurts himself. Спасибо. Bill P.S. Here is our daughter’s golden retriever, Billy (we wrote about him on Monday) back at home after a weekend at the farm… Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to feedback@bonnerandpartners.com. FEATURED READS Economists Are Taking Another Hard Look at Income Inequality
As Bill points out, the wealth gap keeps growing… Since the Occupy Wall Street movement over a decade ago, economists have homed in on income inequality between the bottom 99% and top 1%. Now, there are new theories about capitalism that could impact your daily life. Stop Trying to Be a “Master of the Universe”
Last week, former $1 billion hedge fund manager Larry Benedict shared a simple insight that has made him successful as a trader over the past 35 years. It has to do with not diversifying your portfolio… Read also… Investors Go Against the Status Quo
Larry is not the only one going against the conventional investment wisdom that a diversified portfolio is safer… MAILBAG Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Bill “turned off, tuned out, unplugged… and went cold turkey” on the internet revolution. And at least one Dear Reader appreciates Bill’s attempt to take his life back from technology… Thanks so much for your witty, yet very insightful, post on the Electronic Revolution. I have been following your posts for years, and look forward to your daily posts. I am a 70-year-old retired teacher living in Vancouver, Canada, and am very troubled by and concerned about the nefarious activities currently taking place on the planet – I have this ominous sense of the tribulations to come. Please take good care, and keep writing and enlightening us. – Richard M. Meanwhile, one Dear Reader thinks Bill missed the point after he called Thanksgiving a “unified national myth”… As an immigrant to this country I did not have any preconceptions or “baggage” attached to Thanksgiving and wanted to learn why this uniquely American holiday was important. I read widely, I asked many questions of friends, neighbors, and family, and I came to understand the cultural and historical importance of the holiday. I also came to understand how much it has been impacted by more recent history and cultural events. Was your portrayal fair and balanced? I don’t think any reasonable person would call it that. Was it accurate? Maybe in a certain light, if I squint a bit. But what was your point? I don’t know… Truthfully, I have read it over several times and I cannot determine what your intent was. To entertain? To inform? To mislead? To expose some peculiar bias against puritans or settlers? I really don’t know, but I think you missed it. As far as I can tell, the only useful thing you imparted was that there is an American-style grocery store in Paris called The Real McCoy. In which case, you wasted a large amount of publishing space and time to tell us that. But since it is your publishing space and time, I guess you have that right. As for myself and my extended American family, we enjoyed the company of people from several cultures, with food and drink from around the world. Conversations were held in several languages, translated by some for the rest of us. Jokes, stories, and experiences were shared. And we were all very thankful, even though for some of us it was an adopted holiday. – Michael H. Are we overusing tech devices to our detriment, like Bill pointed out on Monday? Did Bill miss the point of Thanksgiving, as Michael says? Write us at feedback@bonnerandpartners.com. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… Trump’s Gift to Seniors? President Trump has just given a new gift to seniors, that’ll let them live like kings. It’s being called “Trump’s Technology.” And he’s set aside December 10th to help roll it out across America. At a recent conference, he said: “No matter where you are, you will have access very quickly to [this technology], and it’s going to be a different life.” But behind this gift to seniors is the true purpose of this technology being spread across the fruited plain. That purpose is to prepare America for her biggest challenge yet! E.B. Tucker, Casey Research’s chief analyst, reveals what that challenge is – and why this tech roll-out could give you a $125,000 windfall… if you’re in before December 10th, 2019. Click here to see the biggest wealth-creation event in U.S. history. 
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