Howdy all!

At the present time I am feeling stuck somewhere between Hoye and Barbera...

Hoye - seems to suggest a rally in stocks(including gold stocks) out to March and maybe April. In short, presently more reward than risk.

Barbera - warned to move to cash now (except for bullion holdings) as he sees a good chance for a near-term fall in the markets, possibly a big one, and this would most likely take gold stocks down as well. In short, presently more risk than reward.

Now, due to what we lived through last fall, I am definitely once bitten, twice shy; I am tending to play this defensively.

However, I do not want to miss out if Hoye is right (again!) OR if Hoye is wrong, but so is Barbera, and the gold stocks decouple from the general stock market, meaning that "big fall or no big fall in the general markets", the gold stocks move up.

For the moment, the best I have come up with is to play it both ways: hold on to core positions in my favourite stocks, but also move to a considerable cash position.

I figure that if the gold stocks move and I am too late to jump on, there will be other areas where I can put my "safety" money to work if the general market crashes (e.g. uranium, oil, infrastructure, OR simply shorting the market).

If there is one thing I have been hearing a lot lately, it is that we may very well fall way below the November lows on the DOW and the S&P; I would rather be ready for that too early than too late!

I would appreciate any thoughts you might have; you folks have helped me learn a lot!

Thanks!

Stone

P.S. It sounds like Jim Puplava would suggest to hold the course, as gold stocks will eventually end higher. However, I am having a lot of trouble placing bets based on what JP says after hearing "this is the year of the juniors" one too many times! Of course, this does not mean that he could not be right this time; if I get out now THIS WILL BE THE YEAR OF THE JUNIORS! :(