In last year’s Forbes rankings, which are generally the reference, Mark Zuckerberg ranks as the 52nd richest person in the world. It’s an amazing accomplishment for a 27 year old to rank on that list. The fact that he has decided to sign the Giving Pledge promising to give away at least 50% of his net worth to charity over the course of his life is truly impressive.

I haven't been blogging as much lately, mostly because I've been swamped with other duties. And doing anything with my portfolio has been non-existent as well. And I feel good about that for now.

You see, with all that's going on in the world (read: Major Uncertainty), my equities/gold/gold miners/cash position continues to give me comfort. Whether that holds or not, we'll see.

But I continue to read, read, and read some more. Value investors love to read and I'm certainly no exception. One of the best reads lately has been the Levy Harkins Q2 letter to investors.

Management of KiOR, Inc. (KIOR:  Nasdaq) and its bevy of investment bankers talked big in the weeks leading up the company’s initial public offering in late June 2011.  The deal would be priced between $19.00 and $21.00 per share they said, potentially giving the company $210 million in proceeds.  A self-proclaimed renewable fuels operation, KiOR needs the money to commercialize and perfect its proprietary technology platform to convert non-food biomass into hydrocarbon-based oil.

The equity market has a way of humbling even those with the sharpest pencils.  No matter how brilliant or successful, analysts and traders were dealt the harshest of critiques yesterday.  Yesterday, on August 4, 2011, the U.S. markets declined by the largest percentage since the Fall 2008 financial system crisis.  Some pundits have called it a “correction.”
What is a market correction anyway?  It is defined as a downward movement in the equity market from 5% to 20% that is not large enough to be called a “bear market.” 

John Dizard's Financial Times column has this insightful observation:

By Marin Katusa, Casey Research Energy Team
Coal prices are surging ahead even as most other commodities pull back, spurred on by expectations that metallurgical and thermal coal production will again fail to meet rising global demand this year. The result? Record profits for major coal producers like Xstrata, a surge in acquisitions from coal-hungry India, Chinese electricity shortages, and a raging carbon tax debate in Australia amid record investments in that country’s coal-heavy mining sector.

Wall Street grabs onto simple non-technical explanations when making its attempts to keep investors buying

After six straight down weeks the S&P 500 is down only 6% from its April peak.
That’s not near enough to factor all the negatives into stock prices. Those negatives include the rapidly-slowing U.S. economy, sharply-rising global inflation, plunging global markets as central banks raise interest rates to ward off inflation, the cuts in government spending yet to hit the U.S.

Sometimes I ask myself a question. If I suddenly inherited a pot of money, and was required to keep it as an investment portfolio, what's the first thing I would do with it?

Right now, I'd devote a decent portion to gold mining stocks. And I'd buy the ones I've held for well over a year now -- Newmont Mining (NEM), Goldcorp (GG), Agnico-Eagles Mines (AEM) and the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX).

Why? Because the mining stocks have underperformed the bullion, and offer value.

Of the 133 analysts who have now gone public in maintaining that gold will eventually go to a parabolic peak price of 2,500/ozt.+ before the bubble bursts 90 – yes 90 – maintain that gold will reach at least 5,000 per ozt. Take a look here at who is projecting what, by when. Words: 954
Lorimer Wilson (www.FinancialArticleSummariesToday.com and www.munKNEE.com) identifies below the 133 analysts by name with their price projections and time  frame.

I was just emailing someone a few hours ago that I did not think this was the bottom, and that before its said and done that 200 day moving average has to be broken.  If nothing else, to flush out the technical traders, who will sell on that break.  Bigger picture we have had little panic, and aside from yesterday it has been very methodical trading to the downside. I like to see a 'flush' selling moment to get constructive at the end of these selloffs, or at least to play a more tradeable bounce.  It doesn't always work out that way, but usually it does.