Gambles

Licensed investment advisors in Thailand cannot receive commission, they can only work on a fee basis - so it's not just "nice words" it is the status quo - any licensed investment advisor in Thailand has to work on a fee basis.

So just look at the list although I suspect that only a very few handle QROPS so you may not have the whole list to choose from.

MK12,

I obviously don't know anything about this particular case (though that doesn't seem to have stopped everyone else here commenting) and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on the specifics anyway but many of the general comments on here are just so far wide of the mark that I can't let them go much even though it would probably be easier to do so.

It's utter nonsense to say that there's no recourse. All financial services activities in Thailand are regulated by the SEC. The SEC has a very clear set of laws and regulations that cover intermediaries and which stand up well to most other standards - these are indexed here: http://www.sec.or.th/EN/MarketProfessionals/Intermediaries/Pages/laws-regulations.aspx

The underlying principles behind this framework are outlined here: http://www.sec.or.th/EN/MarketProfessionals/Intermediaries/Pages/RegulatoryPrinciplesObjectives.aspx

The monitoring procedures are also clearly laid out: http://www.sec.or.th/EN/MarketProfessionals/Intermediaries/Pages/prudential_risk.aspx

The different aspects of enforcement are also clearly indexed: http://www.sec.or.th/EN/Enforcement/Pages/enforcement_search.aspx

There are very clear processes for dispute resolution including the option of an arbitration process.

Personally I'd be pretty certain that Wym's comment about officials is actionable so he or she might be well advised to remove that before it causes himself/herself or the site a problem but I'm not a lawyer (even though I head up a group that includes a law practice) and if the claim about TV and the branch/area manager is in any way wide of the mark that might be dangerous too. I'm not being garrulous, just saying that comments made behind a pseudonym can still land you in trouble if you're not as careful as you should be.

The qualifications required to be certified as an analyst in Thailand include an internationally recognized benchmark (CFA) so it's equally wrong to say that advisors, at least licensed ones, are "untrained...retards". Thailand implemented a commission ban long before the UK or Australia did so comments about that are wide of the mark too and the cold-calling rules are very clear - licensed companies have to maintain "do not call" lists. I can't imagine licensed individuals not having work permits but you can check whether individuals are licensed on the SEC website too http://market.sec.or.th/public/orap/IC01.aspx?lang=en

You have to make up your own mind where to go for advice (I'm certainly not pitching) but the SEC maintains a list of licensed advisory companies: http://capital.sec.or.th/webapp/en/infocenter/intermed/comprofile/resultl_new.php?lic_no=3

So MK12, your situations sounds extremely distressing but apart from the fact that there are strict laws here, that commission-based investment advice can't be promoted in Thailand, that licensed advisors are highly qualified and almost certainly do have work permits, that licensed firms have to maintain "don't call" lists and the fact that the SEC is extremely open and transparent then much of the advice on here is sound - oh and I wouldn't say that all licensed advisors are "retards" either. Standards vary in all industries and even within all advisory practices but I think that your experience sounds very unfortunate indeed. As a first step, I'd always suggested talking to the advisor and to the senior people there to try to see if there's a way to resolve things amicably but if that fails, I don't think many of the comments on here so far can have been much help or comfort to you.

Good luck with this, I hope you can find a preferably amicable resolution,

Paul

The various actions of the various imperial powers(UK, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal, USA, France and even Japan etc) have left some kinds of lasting marks on South East Asia but the impact of that has also been determined by the respective states (no pun) of development of the various South East Asian nations themselves - Thailand was really much more of a feudal federation at that time - what we're finding out now is far Thailand has developed (or not) since then

The irony of all this is that Greece actually defaulted last week but everyone's trying to pretend that it didn't.

Whereas the US isn't really defaulting but everyone's saying that it is.

In both cases though this is the phoney war before the real debt battle begins...IMHO!

4Horse.pdf

Not correct, PP. It all depends on where the first to die is domiciled.

In summary:

First to die UK domiciled, spouse UK domiciled: full spousal exemption (no Inheritance Tax)

First to die UK domiciled, spouse non-UK domiciled: personal allowance + limited spousal exemption (£325,000 + £55,000 = £380,000)

First to die non-UK domiciled, spouse UK or non-UK domiciled: full spousal exemption (no Inheritance Tax)

If your wife is non-UK domiciled her estate outside the UK is not liable for Inheritance tax on her death; if she becomes UK domiciled, however, then her estate world-wide is liable for UK Inheritance Tax. Not necessarily a good move.

I'm currently in your second case and am considering the benefits of moving to your first case. [note, if the estate is worth more than the full exemption (650k?) then you pay IHT on the balance but I know what you were trying to say]

Your fourth case is the same as as the first case, we would both be UK domiciled and the full spousal exemption would apply but as she's worth more than me then yes you're right it's not necessarily a good move. But I'm expecting to be the first one to go.

In all these cases using a simple excluded property trust (EPT) makes sense

- for the non-dom spouse, she loses nothing but the assets remain outside the dom's estate if she dies first

for the possibly dom who thinks he's non-dom now, then if this is the best situation that the potentially dom will have, then they too can exclude assets from estate in case their non-dom claims weaken in future

EPTs are very easy to set up and tend to be relatively unintrusive although every situation is different and professional advice should be obtained.

Cheers,

Paul

er, Bloomberg maybe?

...

All the best with this,

Paul

Indeed. there is never any simple answer to investments and what fits one hand might not fit another. There is also a saying, "don't put all your eggs in one basket' -- i.e., if you work in banking, don't invest in that, if you work in IT, don't invest in that.. If it crashes you might lose your job and your stocks/funds half or whatever. And never buy stocks in the company you work for, if it goes down the drain you lose both your job and money.... Don't know if "if you work in thailand, don't invest in thailand" applies though I'm working in the country I come from and going to invest here. Though that will be renting out apartments, NOT stocks/funds. But that is just because I have some grasp of the rental market here and it's fairly ok. Not too good, but stable enough and yield & ease of entrance and financing is ok..

and while sticking to what you know never pushed back any boundaries, it can generally tend to lead to acceptable results and avoid the worst pitfalls....

all the best,

Paul

My personal inflation rate, and, indeed all those Thais that I speak with, are experiencing an inflation rate higher than the official figure, due to those "volatile food and fuel prices". Hmm, in my experience once food producers are used to higher prices they do not willingly drop the prices again, and neither do the restaurants. Prices are always sticky on the downside.

However I am pleased to see the focus is on stability rather than growth, and the rising interest rate should support the THB, reducing the cost of fuel imports.

not sure that the Baht can rise as fast as the oil price right now.....

I'm more concerned with not being associated in any way with UK residency or domicile in order to not be subject to inheritence tax.

Can you please explain what you mean, PP?

Are you suggesting that non doms (ex UK) are not subject to UK inheritance tax in the event of someone in the UK dying and bequeathing something to them?

Thanks!

Not sure about that scenario, I'm more worried about them taking 40% off what I bequeath when I croak but from what I've read in that regard I'd say the IHT is applied to the estate of the person who died, so any bequests would be paid out after tax has been deducted.

OK, thanks for the clarification!

The only way I know to 'avoid' (not 'evade') IHT, certainly with regard to property in the UK, is to gift one's estate before one's death, and then survive the gift by 7 years. Otherwise, I believe HMG UK will be looking for their 40% irrespective of where you live, no?

e

In general, IHT is charged on the entire worldwide estate of anyone UK domiciled

IHT is charged on UK assets irrespective of domicile

Obviously it's charged on surplus above nil rate band plus any non-dom spouse allowance

Transfers between UK dom spouses are exempted

Anyone born to a UK father has UK domicile of origin - to lose that generally means establishing a bullet proof domicile of choice

Any UK connection is generally regarded as potential evidence of maintaining a UK link and therefore retaining UK domicile

Any change in domicile of choice automatically reverts to domicile of origin

UK company pensions are now regarded as portable assets and therefore part of any plan to adopt a new domicile of choice would normally need to consider transferring the UK pension offshore (potentially reducing/avoiding income tax into the bargain)

UK state pensions aren't regarded as portable so shouldn't really be used as any kind of evidence in a dom of choice assessment

Discounted gift trusts, gift & loans, QNUPS and Excluded property trusts should also be considered in addition to gifts/potentially exempt transfers

Both gold and silver are getting strong support currently as a result of increasing 2 fold demand.. With demand comming from investors and industrial applictions, suggest that this is no bubble. I hold AUY(yamana gold) as a long term play. Nice leval of support for gold at 1400.

Relative to Dow - it's still cheap

the bottom of the DJIA relative to 1 Oz of gold tends to close to 1:1, and certainly below 3:1

if this historic pattern holds (or has it been blown away by the amount of paper created in the last 30 years??) then what's the deal, gold at 12,000? dow at 1400? or both of them meeting somewhere in between (in any of these cases expect a very short lived peak in gold and bottom in equities

we've been floatimng this idea for a while but I still reckon it's quite a way away and maybe 2-3:1 is more realistic in the new paradigm although you could expect Dow and gold to be equally inflated by the surfeit of dollars

cheers all,

Paul

At 1.5% you are still losing money due to inflation...

Never done it in thailand, but government bonds seems to give a better yield http://www.kasikornb...ondTrading.aspx

Instead of trying to guess a good stock, mutual funds might be better, but watch out for buying & selling charges.. IMO there shouldn't be any charges for buying and selling mutual funds, but don't know how far they have gotten in this area in Thailand.. Yearly cost of 1.5-2.0% is normal for a managed (ie, not index) fund.

Regarding stocks though, I have always liked kasikorn..

Although the answers guven provide an insightful range of choices, to be honest the best advice would be related very specifically to your own needs and plans for the future, your tax situations, liquidity requirements, base currencies etc etc. An offshore savings plan or a local LTF(long term equity fund), the former capable of being tailored more specifically to a range of base currencies, the latter offering Thai tax breaks and a broad spread of risk-rated investment and savings choices but much more limited portability would be good places to start though. For instance the advice on Thai deposit rates is extremely helpful but if you can have access to this through a tax-priviledged RMF(retirement mutual fund) that can often mean a higher effective return. I'd suggest meeting with a planner who can offer all of these plus a wide range of other choices. This isn't a business pitch, while I'd obviously be very happy to answer a PM by introducing you to someone from the company that I work for who could help you with this, there should be other professional planners who could help you evaluate exactly what your needs are and have access to the whole of the market solutions internationally and locally; I'm sure we're not the only ones. Basic information is available locally from any of the Thai banks about LTFs and RMFs. The general rule is to get as much information from as many sources as possible and not to take any action until you fully understand it, you're sure that it feels right for you, you've asked every last question you possibly can and you get the feeling that you've been told everything that's possibly relevant about the subject.

All the best with this,

Paul

We had that John Mauldin on the show a couple of weeks back, he said that it wouldn't be crazy for the crazy Irish to tell Jean-Claude Trichet to "kiss off" -

i hope so ! or even invite them to kiss the Blarney Stone

there's plenty of folk out there who'd like to find the inverse Blarney for me to kiss and for it to have the opposite effect..........

;-)

The luck o' the Irish

http://www.youtube.c...eature=youtu.be

It's about time the IRA rolled up their sleeves and sorted out the real enemy.

If the new government agree to be bound by what Brian Cowen and his team

negotiated I am a monkeys uncle !

I am not a monkeys uncle after all

If Ireland Asserts Sovereignty, Bye-Bye Empire

"If the Irish government does what it says it intends to do, which is its legitimate right, which is to deny their obligations to meet the debt of foreign banking institutions operating on Irish soil, run by the British Empire's Inter-Alpha Group, that means the toppling of the entire damned system," Lyndon LaRouche stated yesterday. "

http://larouchepac.com/node/17805

I sincerely hope that the Paddies take this road.

Somebody, at some point, has to finally call an end to this crazy system where we are paying off debt to the <deleted> banks forever. The Sword of Damocles should once again hang over the heads of those responsible, not golden parachutes, pensions and bonuses handed out freely for failure.

The bankers extorted their way into creating the current system by firstly creating money to pay for wars and then threatening to withdraw that money from the economy. We are now in the position that just 2.6% of the money supply has been issued by the government and 97.6% by the <deleted> banking system. The banks own us, and can create recessions, depressions and bubbles at will.

This is a disaster for the population, as wealth is constantly sucked out from the wealth created by labour and put into the bankers' wallets.

I hope that Ireland will bring this to a head and stick a massive middle finger into the faces of the bankers.

We had that John Mauldin on the show a couple of weeks back, he said that it wouldn't be crazy for the crazy Irish to tell Jean-Claude Trichet to "kiss off" -

"the general subordinated/perp markets look best exited right now"

basically i agree but admit that i still hold three subs (average yield in € 9+%), with (in my view) strong fundamentals and good market liquidity.

yes, for sure there will be exceptions but fewer and further between as time goes by - 3 probably sounds right!!

But it is high time the governments got to grips with this issue. But they won't, because it is easier to do very little and just keep on hoping for the best.

Well you have to give Cameron some credit for trying - although I dont whether they

will let him get away with this ?!

Cameron orders Ministers to draw up 40 per cent spending cuts - the biggest in history

Read more: http://www.dailymail...l#ixzz0sldvnDeW

I thought that giving credit was the cause of all this??????????

we all have our stories

i lost 2 times - dot com and the FC

then made it all back on one share

plus lots up upside to come

now looking at how to keep it (shhhhhhh)

Now that I have a single idea lodged in my brain - it occurs to me that that's another good way at looking at technical trading versus fundamental investing - making money versus keeping it.............

more arrows from the traders headed my way and probably from the fundamentalists as well this time too!

You are a Marxist you said way back in this thread.

Well, when I said I was a Marxist, I meant that my investment strategy was largely based on the Marxist analysis of risk and my philosophy is inherently dialectic (Hegel/Marx). So to some extent, Marx believed that say capitalism which by its nature put wealth in the hands of the few which will move from being productive to anti-productive and ultimately be replaced. If you pursue a particular policy of self interest it will eventually end up as a policy that works against your interests. This could apply to regulation, deregulation, globalisation, a pegged Chinese US$ exchange rate etc.

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit."

So entrenched political and economic philosophies will inevitably become destructive in the end (communism being one of the best examples.) I also believe that individuals are inherently fairly smart (4 million years of evolution of excessively big brains should justify that) while Governments tend to be inherently stupid (the problem of aggregation again- not a great Marxist concept.) It is also why I am not a great believer in conspiracy theories because I essentially dont think Governments are competent enough to create one. A good example of dialectics is the Chinese currency peg to the US$, which essentially has moved from being mutually constructive, to mutually destructive which will eventually lead to change.

Einstein said (a good way to start a sentence, people anticipate something deep, intelligent and meaningful) that 'We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.'

Now as a quote it is more likely you would see that as 'common sense' rather than 'intelligence.' However, if I think about what irritates people most in this thread is that Government's have essentially tried to solve underlying problems using the same kind of thinking that created it them.

Finally, a Marxist analysis of risk would suggest that the most productive way forward is to reduce global imbalances. I am not talking about the rich and the poor but for surplus countries to reduce their surpluses which would result in deficit countries reducing their deficits. And the point about dialectics is that if you think that reducing deficits, which reduces surpluses is the same answer to the same question you are wrong.

And the major difference between Marx and Goldman Sachs on capitalism, is that GS believes that ruthlessly pursuing self interest ends up with everyone getting a new plane while Marx thought they would end up getting shot. Now the question over who is right here is debatable on the basis the GS employees did all get new planes but in the meantime they destroyed the banking system they were trying to create. So the likes of 12D would probably have preferred to have them all shot.

Interesting....

I believe that Marx (and therefore Popper and Soros) had a much better understanding of capitalism than GS does. It was just communism where Marx was way off course. Ironically, GS will ultimately probably do far more, unwittingly, to damage capitalism than Herr Naam's compatriot...

Ahaaa.... now I know why you dont like equities. It is not because of the volatility and uncertainty of the fundamentals but because of the volatility and uncertainty of the price relative to the fundamentals.

Very interesting point - this and Badge's point below

Lots of people 'called the low' in 2008/09.Lots of people advocated; 'dip[ing] his toes into specific equities' , or 'accumulating select companies' in 2008/09 etc...the financial market equivalent of aquarium gravel.

re: sentiment/technicals. I pity anyone who does not see the use of any form of price graphs in financial markets; theyre a silent, unemotional snapshot, of a very noisy and emotionally charged market place. Understanding this mindset sees myself surrounded by the good and the great in trading circles; peripheral commentators need not apply. The term 'technicals' applies to much more than simple price graphs or moving averages or oscillators etc in my vocab.Sentiment will always follow fundamentals, and vice versa. However, as mentioned just yesterday I think, the disconnect between being able to identify the 'lag-time' or;even just forseeing these opportunities, and actually capitalising from them, is impossible for most.

I think that we all know about the market's ability to remain irrational for as long as it dam_n well pleases. To me (and I'm expecting to be shot down here by Badge & co) the longer term the investment horizon the greater the value of fundamentals, the shorter term the trading horizon, the greater the value of technicals. Pragmatic asset allocation should be open to both but in both cases there's a whole lot of hokum floating around and the last couple of years have tended to cause yours truly to retreat deeper into my shell of being far more selective about who my heroes are. I have no doubt that good traders made 100% returns in 2009 and many will have avoided the worst excesses of '08. Good luck to them. These are the conditioins where the best performances will come from the best traders and IMHO the worst perfromances will come from the worst traders and the most reliable consistent delivery of return while providing protection for invested capital will come from pragmatic asset allocation. To me this question is all about understanding the value that you genuinely have at risk and matching that and your horizons. At the end of the day however you dress it up, managed futures are really computerised traders and we're open enough to MF as an asset class.

I'm not saying it well but IMHO - based on my experience rather than on any great received theory- fundamentals should provide strategic allocation, technicals should provide tactical allocations but, as I'm increasingly realizing, largely thanks to the excellent tutelage of Naam, Abrak and Badge, each to their own.....

"details please Gambles. we all like heroes.

just economic? or generally?

performance 2007, 2008 and 2009 > "it was their portfolios that I was referring to..."

sorry about that - It's best to read through the pdf and see the picture in totality, warts and all ,Osmium-Iridium-Portfolio-Final.pdf but for the headlines the average of the base currency performance of Martin Gray as a manager(to May 09)/The Osmium unitised portfolio (since June 09) in Sterling base class and the average of the 3 separate core Iridium portfolios under Scott Campbell's guidance 2007 to date is as follows:

2007 14.6%

2008 -2.9%

2009 5.9%

2010 YTD +1.6%

that might apply to Abrak and a bunch of others but not to me Honourable Sir Gambles, Esq. as i am not talking about a stupid stock casino but about subordinated bonds which traded at or above par 12 months before spring 2009 but could be picked up at a fraction of their "fair" and former prices for several months (mar-aug 2009). a bond that traded at par when (as mentioned above) the sun was shining that could be picked up at 12 or 15 (or even below 10!) can hardly be called a "falling knife".

for an approach like yours I agree but it was still a falling knife. There were bargains in pretty much all corporate debt and in Feb '09 in The Bangkok Post, The Nation and on Money Channel, Scott highlighted corporate debt, gold and emerging equities as the main areas of upcoming value but it would be re-writing history to say that the valuation triggers made the bottom evident - an example that we used at the time of how difficult it was to pick the bottom is that if an asset falls 80% in value and you buy it and it ultimately ends up falling 90% you bought somewhere 'near' the bottom but you still ended up overpaying 2:1 compared to the actual bottom...in addition the biggest value was in the areas where you had to be the most concerned about corporate failures.....getting in at anything remotely approaching value should be considered success just as exiting again at the right time is....the general subordinated/perp markets look best exited right now

However, the downturn and been so sharp that many price movements were fairly indiscriminate. Maybe a hedge fund had to sell stock etc.. The same happens in very sharp upswings. Prices of certain stocks literally disconnect with their fundamentals. So if a stock is trading at half net cash per share, it is say, very hard to say it isnt cheap (unless it is bleeding cash.)

So, from my perspective, it wasnt so much at matter of calling the bottom of the market but simply that there were loads of investments that were bound to come right with a bit of patience. It is a harrowing time though I bought a stock on a PE of 3x only to find it was trading on 2x a week later. Also, in terms of hindsight, it doesnt bother me if I sell something and it doubles but it does when I fail to spot value. I find the current markets incredibly difficult and actually very 'risky'.

Agreed - but then over a year later and the quality stocks haven't been the ones that most benefitted so it remains an impossible macro situation to read with any confidence...some things appear inevitable (rise of gold, appreciation of Asian currencies, de-linking of surplus and deficit economies, sovereign bond weakness) but I said in January that in all of these cases I wouldn't be surprised to see gold, Asian currencies (relative to US$) and EM equities weaken before appreciating and US$ and sovereign debt appreciate before weakening...it's not clear to me where we are in this process and that's what makes the markets so hard to read right now......it may be therefore that each asset actually requires a different strategy - with gold average into gold equities, with Asian currencies just try to rotate from now to Asian bias and accept that the timing will be neccessarily imperfect but the theme is ultimately valid, with equities take a long short/hedged approach and with sovereign debt there's a valid case for relative value plays as the various global debt crises move inexorably

This is where traders can come into their own and exploit these situations knowing the risks which is why nickels and bulldozers are so fascinating right now but I would generally assert that from my perspective I'd prefer to cover this off with limited allocations to managed futures and global macro managers

These are fascinating times and there is money to be made but there are exreme risks and when markets are so hard to read, always, always, alwasy make sure that your back is covered,,,,,

"I do really wish someone had punched me very hard in March 2009 and told me that if I couldnt find anything worth buying I must be a complete idiot."

c'mon Abrak, you were not an idiot! who had the guts to bet the ranch in march, april, may or even june till august? 2009 was the best year in 3½ decades since i made my first "real" money and started investing. looking back i might think "why did i pussyfoot and applied only 20-25% add a time to make only 44% on my total portfolio? why did i not go in full blast and double or even triple my portfolio to add a digit to my total NAV?"

hindsight will not assist us in case we experience another crash like 2008/09 because again we won't dare to risk all.

agreed, Herr Naam

I know what you're syaing Abrak but I still maintain that they didn't go up because they were cheap - in terms of pricing the market it was definitely a case of catching falling knives (to refer to one of the 2 aforementioned heroes, MG said in Bkk in mid-March that certain stocks appeared to be cheap and he was ready to dip his toes into specific equities whose highly likely cash flows meant that he was prepared to hold onto if they and the markets continued to fall) - they went up because the force-fed stimulus paid off short term. The liquidity impact was apparent from analysis of which stocks rose the most/the quickest - fundamentals were out to lunch.......

Edwards of Socgen recently wrote that he spent all the time prior to le bounce spelling out all the conditions for getting back into the market and then when these were met, he just didn't act...he feels that whipping to within an inch of his miserable life but then again.......that might just be a peccadilo of the estimable Mr. Edwards.....

"details please Gambles. we all like heroes.

just economic? or generally?

<BR>

<BR>

<BR>^ So you're saying its a "BUY" on sentiment Paul?  More objective measures of sentiment are getting darn close to saying the same thing, but they got late 2008 early 2009 wrong.<BR>

<BR><BR><BR>Sorry for being dim, Lanna, not sure which comment you're referring back to? Gold?......<BR>sentiment's always difficult to exploit safely - if it's flying in the face of fundamentals then picking up nickels in front of 'dozers is always risky; this is why <B>we</B> only dipped our toes in last year's rallies rather than diving in<BR>

<BR><BR>The royal "we"? Or you threw some client money to our hero Scott Campbell, and<B> he </B>dipped his toes in last years rallies?<BR><BR>Incidentally I disagree with your nickel/dozer/sentiment adage too, as those situations simply dont arise. Being as subjective as it is though, Im sure you can drum up some tenuous examples if bothered <IMG class=bbc_emoticon alt= src="http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif"><BR>

<BR><BR>well I have quite a few heroes but chiefly Martin Gray and Scott and yes it was their portfolios that I was referring to - both called the bottom in March but neither felt sufficient conviction to wade in gung ho and that's one interesting feature of last year - that most of the fairly small number of investors who called the bottom took a limited exposure to it. There's been a couple of analyses that I've read of inflows and outflows that basically seem to show that bank prop desks awash with cash thanks to the bail out invested in H1 08 came back into the markets but otherwise equity inflows were very limited until the middle/later part of H2. Corporate bonds and property did rather better but equity inflows were very limited.<BR><BR>Badge, I know that you're a trader and you feel that technicals can generate buying and selling signals but then as a trader you must know that if the sentiment tide turns and you're caught swimming naked then flying in the face of fundamentals can be very painful - as a trader buying on sentiment then that's one of the risks that you take....I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm not saying that you can't make money doing it, I'm just saying that it is risky but a smart trader knows that and assumes that with every trade that he places and that's surely part of the risk/reward entry fee of trading?? Or am I missing something?

destroying their economies trying to protect their indefensible currencies and banking systems

Good line

defend for protect even better....Hey a T-shirt?

agreed - I stand corrected (or at least improved)