With global investment markets standing at crossroads, investors have the option to lose it all or to benefit from the biggest wealth transfer in history. I have quoted this passage from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar many times but it is more appropriate than ever for the situation the world is now in:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”

William Shakespeare

Sadly, very few will take the correct current and that is why the majority of people will end in shallows and miseries. The wealthy will lose the majority of their fortunes and many of the poor be exposed to poverty and famine. I know this sounds like another prophecy of doom and gloom but we don’t need to go further than Venezuela, with inflation reaching 1 million percent and the currency collapsing by 99.9% this year to understand what can happen. A cup of coffee costs 2 million Bolivars and most Venezuelans can neither get hold of nor afford sufficient food for their family. A major part of the adult population has lost 25 pounds (11kg) in weight.

BE PREPARED

In most countries in the West, it is still not too late to prepare a wealth preservation plan. People who have savings and investments have a lot more to lose relatively than the poor but for the less well off it will be a matter of survival just like for the Venezuelans.

There are many survival guides as regards all aspects of life. Jim Sinclair has for example written an excellent “Be Prepared” series that covers many of these aspects.

Probably less than 1% of investors will take the tide which “leads to fortune”. What most people won’t understand is that the Central Bank credit expansion bonanza is now coming to an end. The exponential moves up in stocks, bonds and property prices, will turn to catastrophic falls that will destroy most of the wealth in the world.