Two weeks ago, I stunned the crowd… I said something that nobody wanted to hear…

I was onstage, during “the big finale” at the Global Currency Expo. My fellow keynote speakers at the conference were there with me, staring into the bright stage lights, squinting to see the few hundred attendees.

The “big finale” was the Speaker’s Roundtable…

[ad#Google Adsense 336×280-IA]Before my stunning revelation, most of the speakers had sung the praises of gold and gold stocks.

Then it was my turn…

I thought about biting my tongue and keeping my opinion to myself… I’m not the type of person to cause trouble or even make any waves.

But my duty to tell my readers what I really think is more important than not making any waves.

So I spoke up:

“I disagree with all of these guys,” I said. “I’d rather own U.S. stocks than gold over the next 12-18 months.”

Remember, this was two weeks ago, before gold’s big bust. The room collectively gasped… Who was I to go against the cult of gold?

“Of course, I understand the reasons for owning gold for the long term… And I believe in those reasons,” I explained. “But in the short term – right now – those reasons aren’t showing yet.”

Yes, governments around the world are printing money… but it’s not doing much to inflation rates yet – credit is shrinking faster than the money is increasing. The BIGGER trend right now is the ZERO interest rate policy in the U.S., which is causing the share prices of high-quality U.S. companies to soar.

“There’s more of this to come,” I explained…

The Bernanke Asset Bubble is in full swing. That’s my term for the crazy boom that I expect to occur in U.S. stock prices and U.S. housing prices, as the U.S. Federal Reserve keeps interest rates at zero for longer than anyone can imagine.

And even though prices are up, there’s plenty of room for U.S. stocks and U.S. housing to run even more.

In short, high-quality U.S. companies are still an excellent value, relative to just about any other investment. And U.S. housing is incredibly affordable, too, coming off a once-in-a-lifetime crash in prices and record-low mortgage rates. To me, this was an easy one.

I wasn’t predicting a massive fall in the price of gold when I was on stage. All I was saying was, today – and for the next 12-18 months – I would rather own U.S. stocks and housing over gold.

Please don’t get me wrong here…

  • I DO believe that gold stocks are ridiculously cheap.
  • I DO believe in gold… You can print paper, but you can’t print gold.

However, I am not buying gold or gold stocks today – for the same reasons explained in yesterday’s DailyWealth… Trends can and do persist beyond reason. And investments (including gold stocks) can fall farther than most people can possibly imagine.

In hindsight, Monday’s action in gold may turn out to be some kind of bottom in the gold price. But you know what? This downtrend can keep going… As an investor, I’ve learned it’s much safer to let that knife hit the ground and settle down before I try to pick it up.

We got out of pure-play gold and precious-metals stocks early in my True Wealth newsletter without too much damage (mostly because we followed our trailing stops). Today, I’m thankful we did.

And we are in no hurry to get back in… We will buy gold and gold stocks in True Wealth once this killer downtrend ends and we see the return of an uptrend.

When that day comes, gold stocks will likely be cheap, hated, and in an uptrend. And that is what I want to see. That is when I will buy gold and gold stocks. But we are not there yet.

In the meantime, I’d rather own housing and high-quality U.S. stocks.

Good investing,

Steve

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Source: DailyWealth