John Carl,
Editor
May 5, 2022
Publisher’s Note: We’re committed to bringing you investing insights from across the entire market — from debt to equity and tiny speculations to the bluest chips. We’ll be bringing on more talent to deliver you those insights as we grow. Today, I’m happy to introduce you to our newest editor, John Carl. John’s been a successful investor for over a decade, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with him at other publishers and on various projects over the past several years. You can expect many of his articles to cover various new technologies. But as a generalist, he’ll truly be providing support across all facets of the market. In his first article, below, he discusses how investing can cover the eroding purchasing power of your dollars. Enjoy!
—Nick
There’s nothing quite so alluring as long-lost treasure.
Just imagine what it might be like to hear an old family story about a hidden fortune… climb into the attic with a flashlight and crowbar… and crack open creaky floorboards to reveal a box stacked to the brim with cash.
And then, as you count up all the bills, you realize you’ve just found the tens of thousands of dollars that your grandfather hid there decades ago.
Wouldn’t that feel lucky?
Well, today I’d like to explain why this would actually be a tragedy of sorts.
If your eccentric grandfather really did hide away all this money and deprived your family of these funds for so long, your family may not be as lucky as you might think.
The problem is cash.
It’s easy to forget how unkind time is to the value of a dollar — and with inflation being what it is now, this problem has continued to grow even worse.
So bad, in fact, that discovering an old cash box means your grandfather robbed you of the value of the money inside.
If only your grandfather had hidden gold coins, heirloom jewels, or silver trinkets… these would be good finds. These kinds of treasures hold their value for decades (and in most cases are worth far more).
But everything changes when the lost treasure is plain old money.
Because inflation is a silent thief that can reach anywhere…
And can even steal value from money that isn’t in circulation and has been hidden under the floorboards.
Let me tell you a true story that illustrates exactly what I mean.
It’s about a guy named Keith the Treasure Hunter — and how he helped a real family in western Massachusetts in their quest to recover a long-lost stash of cash.
The backdrop of this story takes us to 1958, when the family’s grandfather (or similar family member) decided to squirrel away the entire family fortune.
And not just hide it: but put it away deep within the structure of the house.
It’s not clear why he did all this.
Perhaps the bank crisis from the Great Depression was still too fresh in his memory.
Or maybe his fear was thieves, mooches, and prying eyes.
He was at least thoughtful enough to tell younger family members about the existence of this large stash of funds — and yet wouldn’t speak a word about its exact location.
Unfortunately, his plan completely backfired when he died before passing along the details of his secret.
Whoops! So much for best laid plans.
Realizing the location had been lost to time, the younger family members made countless attempts to find it.
They pulled up floorboards, opened walls, and climbed to the farthest reaches of the attic.
But all searches ended in failure.
And then last year, in 2021, the family decided that the time had come to sell the house.
But there were two family members who didn’t want to give up on the lost money.
They knew this would be their last chance.
So after hearing stories about a “treasure hunter” who’d helped other families, they reached out to him to see if he could help solve their family mystery.
Enter Keith Wille, an enterprising 30-something who’s become famous in the New England area for his uncanny ability to find hidden valuables.
He didn’t disappoint.
He arrived at this family’s house with an entire kit of special tools, including a metal detector, and an endoscopic camera that can fit in between floorboards.
But Keith’s most valuable tool was his experience. He used telltale clues from old family stories to narrow down the potential search area.
Soon he was confident it was in one particular spot of the attic where beams of light landed from a nearby window.
He lived up to his reputation: all told, it took him just 50 minutes to find the box of cash that had remained hidden for 63 years. Go Keith! (If you’d like to learn more about how he found it, you can watch Keith’s detailed 35-minute video on his YouTube channel.)
When he cracked open the lid of the cash box, there was $46,000 in tidy stacks of bills inside.
Success!
But alas… as I said above, while this may seem like a happy ending, the facts aren’t as cheerful.
The sad truth is that this grandfather took the equivalent of $421,603 in today’s dollars and then stashed it until it withered under the heat of inflation, shriveling in value by almost 90%.
Here’s a chart of the US dollar’s value since 1950.
As you can see, it plummets to the bottom.
When you look at it that way, you can see why this cash is a pretty small consolation prize compared to what could have been.
Just imagine how much more money this family would have if grandpa had never tried to hide it in the floorboards.
Or even better, if he put the money to work by investing it.
It’s time for the folly to end.
If this family’s new generation wants to be smarter, then they won’t waste any more time finding a productive use for this money.
And the sooner they act, the better.
Because inflation has just spiked to its highest rate since 1981…
It’s already up to 8.54% since March of last year.
You probably don’t need a chart to tell you this (just look at your last grocery bill) but here it is anyway.
Grim numbers like this turn cash into a liability.
And if this family holds onto that $46,000 for another year at these awful rates, they will have essentially “lost” another $3,928 of value.
The longer the money sits, the more its buying power will fade away.
So what should they do?
And what about the rest of us — how can we protect the value of our hard-earned dollars against the menace of time?
Thankfully my colleagues here at Digest Publishing haven’t been idle…
They’ve put together some outstanding recommendations that are specifically designed to combat the inflation we’re seeing now.
Here are the top three I’m following:
- NICK HODGE is recommending diverting your dollars into gold, real estate investment trusts, utility stocks, and bonds. He warns, “first comes inflation, then comes recession.” Here’s how you can protect yourself from what’s ahead.
- GERARDO DEL REAL is banking on lithium. It’s already seeing record-breaking prices (up 500% since last year!) and the EV market is eating up the world’s supply and pushing demand. Gerardo has found a small junior mining company with a promising new lithium project. The timing couldn’t be better.
- CHRIS CURL has spent the last two months finding cryptos worthy of your money in these troubled markets. (He’s done this before: while the rest of the world was panicking from the pandemic fallout, Chris was making 75x his money on crypto coins.) His newest find is a special crypto that’s used to make NFT transactions seamless. His most recent issue makes the case for why it’s a must-buy for the month ahead.
So don’t be foolish and stash your money in the floorboards...
Be like Keith the Treasure Hunter, and use the tools and experience at your disposal to find what others keep missing.
John Carl
Editor, Daily Profit Cycle