Greetings all,

I, like most of you, am a strong believer that real assets will ultimately win out and that, barring a total collapse of the stock market, gold/silver equities will be stunning winners down the road, in the mania phase.

However, over the last couple of years I have been tempted to play the other side of the game, i.e. to bet not on what is going to go UP, but on what is going to go DOWN. Such a play would have involved shorting U.S. financials, Freddie/Fannie, the U.S. Dollar, etc.

Obviously, this second road, betting against something and not for something, has so far proven to be much more profitable than the first. Unfortunately, due to worries about the perils of shorting and entering the market in ways I do not understand well, I did not go short these.

With recent events, I am again questioning my overall strategy, but it would seem that, as the game progresses, there are fewer and fewer sure bets AGAINST and more bets FOR.

My question is the following: For those of you who have been successful at betting AGAINST, do you see any remaining SAFE BETS "AGAINST", or do you feel the waters are just too dangerous now and it is time to BET "FOR", as we are doing here?

Hindsight is 20/20, and it is clear to me now that going back to 2006/2007, it would have been better to first bet AGAINST the establishment and then FOR the fundamentals; it now seems obvious that it was more certiain to expect Fannie and Freddie to go down than Kimber and Tyhee to go up. I just wish that I had been following some of the analysts who had such a strategy.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

stone