Good posts aitakahashi and ebear.

For my own preferences I will invest in anything if it is the right part of the economic cycle. That would make me a trend investor.
The hard part is determining what is the current/next trend and then riding it until it has almost run its cource. These tend to be long cycles of 5 to 20 years.

Currently I think the trend is real things which include PM's, Energy, Food etc. and I do not think it is over yet.

I think the current weakness is caused by delevereging and fear of deflation which the media is now drumming into peoples heads (Where were they before this started?). This has now driven stock valuations down and in particular PM stocks far below there mean. Most gold stocks are trading as though gold were $250.00/oz. That should mean that even if gold does not rise in the short term mean reversion could bring the stocks up.

The US government is pumping huge amounts of money in to the system and cracks are starting to form. The Japanies are asking for Obama bonds (Us bonds denominated in Japanese Yen http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/J... .

Up until now most of the US debt has been sanitized but I think they are reaching the limit and patience of their creditors otherwise there would not be this talk of monitizing the debt http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p... .

Clearly my assesment of the future is based on inflation not deflation but I think a determined fed can always create inflation and are they ever determined http://research.stlouisfed.org/publi... .

This comes from an Austrian perspective but this is how I see it. Think of it as the 70's on steroids.
http://www.safehaven.com/article-119...