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Update and aWarning October 26, 2025

"You are going to make TONS of money, trust me!"

Public or Privates

Over the years, I have been repeatedly asked by investors not how to put them in an investment, but how to get them out of one.

One would think to get out of an investment, you just pick up the phone and say sell to the person on the other end.

Not so when it comes to certain investments.

I break investments into two categories: “public and privates”. You won’t be able to google up the meanings as these are my own and they refer to whether an investment is listed on a public platform where they can be sold right away or if one has to call the specific company and ask to be let out.

You would think one could get out of an investment if its losing money or not paying you what you expected, but not so with ones that fall under my “privates” designation.

I often hear advertisements on social media or other types of media touting higher annual returns than one might get through more common investments like CDs, bonds, dividend paying stocks or other types you might know of.

The most common types are usually energy trusts, real estate based investments or whatever.

The privates I speak of are usually only offered to “accredited” investors but not always. An accredited investor has a certain income or net worth, or have other means of being labeled accredited, but a lot of normal folks qualify.

Usually the privates are not quoted in the Wall Street journal and therefore their day to day market values might be essentially unknown.

For example, you hear or see an ad touting annual returns of 9-15% or more and it’s from a company you never heard of. If it’s an energy trust per se, it might say they have so and so many power plants or oil wells or whatever. You are offered shares of the entity and they promise you these outsized returns. If it’s a private real estate deal, they might try and impress you with a list of their properties. You like the returns and the story is a good one so you decide to give them some money and buy some shares.

The paperwork is usually massive with lots of small print, lots of terms and conditions, and lots of “outs” for them. The salesperson is nice and the brochure is impressive, so like many people, you don’t go through the fine print with a fine toothed brush, so you sign.

The first thing that should come to mind is why are they paying you double digit returns when the current lending rates might be around 5%?

Answer: the reason is because they may not be able to convince typical entities like banks or business development lenders to loan them any money.

You can guess the reason. If you can’t, think perceived risk by professional lenders. I mean, why would they pay such high rates if they could go to a bank or venture capitalist and get more normal rates?

Secondly, whereas publically traded investments can usually be bought and sold on a whim by calling your broker, these privates usually restrict withdrawals on a certain day (s) of the year and require written advance notice.

Remember all that fine print you didn’t take hours to read and instead took the word of that salesmen that got you so excited?

That fine print usually contains liquidity clauses that might limit the selling of shares. Common restrictions I have seen might be when you can sell shares, how much you can sell, and a shut-off clause that says if the underlying asset is underperforming, hindered in any way or the overall sector or market is down, you can’t sell any at all.

And good luck getting a current market value. Basically, market value it whatever the issuing company is willing to give you and even getting that on any particular day can be next to impossible and additionally, highly suspect as to its accuracy.

Sound dangerous? Believe you me, it has happened a LOT from what I have seen. And I see it when investors need help in redeeming what they can, or just get out altogether.

From my experience, in trying to unwrap one of these (actually many), the paperwork is massive, ambiguous with iron clad clauses. And not in your favor.

Since most traditional brokerages usually won’t take these over nor help you cash them out, the investor is left to twist in the wind at the mercy of the issuing company and their army of lawyers and voice mail machines.

Sound like a nightmare?

It can be.

In conclusion, there are options in the public markets that strive to give investors commiserate opportunities. The public markets can usually provide accurate minute by minute quotes, quarterly earnings reports, and selling doesn’t require an act of God. You can usually get out in a matter of minutes when the applicable markets are open.

Privates or public?

Sounds like a no brainer to me.

“Watching the markets so you don’t have to”

This article expresses the opinion of Marc Cuniberti and is not meant as investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities, nor represents the opinion of any bank, investment firm or RIA, nor this media outlet, its staff, members or underwriters. Mr. Cuniberti holds a B.A. in Economics with honors, 1979, and California Insurance License #0L34249 His insurance agency is BAP INC. insurance services. Email: news@moneymanagementradio.com

Gold ! Update Oct 18 2025

ALL THAT GLITTERS

Gold is golden right now.

Seems like only a few short weeks ago that I penned an article revolving around the price action of both gold and silver.

My, how time flies when you’re having a good time, and gold and silver prices are definitely partying it up.

Up over a thousand dollars an ounce in just a handful of weeks, gold is reaching new heights seemingly every day. The price increases of both metals hit high gear in the last 6 weeks or so and only time will tell if the meteoric rise continues or takes a breather and corrects a bit.

On October 17^th, prices finally took a break and backed off of their relentless rise.

Silver mirrored gold rise and its price finally broke through its January, 1980 high of $50/oz. Doing the quick math, it took silver 45 years to recover where it was way back then. Half a century!

Why now are both metals soaring you ask?

There are many theories and some cold hard truths as well.

Rising prices are brought about by the simple fact that there are more buyers than sellers of the available supply. It is true that a dwindling supply can also cause price spikes, but in the grand scheme of things, this is not the case at this particular point in time with gold and silver.

The gold market is not very large compared to many other markets. At gold’s current price, the total gold market sits at around 1.2 trillion. For comparison, the U.S. stock market tops the 62 trillion-dollar mark while the global stock market is valued at about 127 trillion.

Meanwhile, the silver market sits at about 3 trillion.

So who is buying all this silver and gold and driving prices into the stratosphere?

The rumor mill points a possible finger at central banks of the world.

Central banks are the banks of entire countries. They control the currency of each of their respective nations with the exception of the countries that use the Euro. The Euro is controlled by the European central bank which encompasses 20 countries.

Needless to say, if central banks are scooping up gold and silver, it can supercharge the markets of either metal due to the sheer size of their bankrolls.

Keep in mind, central banks can print up as much money as needed or desired. Even if the number of central banks buying the metals are few in number, the fact that they can print up as much money as they want makes a central bank a powerful force.

Even one central bank buying gold could drive the price higher. The more central banks that start to accumulate the metal, the faster the price rises.

Whereas an individual investor buying spree would certainly move the metals, a central bank buying spree has the possibility of fueling an inferno of price rises.

Why would the central banks of the world want gold or silver or both?

Simply put, gold and silver cannot be printed up willy-nilly like paper money.

Since the beginning of time, gold has been the money of kings. It is often called the only “real” money. It cannot be manufactured at will like paper dollars can. Its store of value has withstood the tincture of time over many thousands of years and it long standing store of value has never been duplicated nor questioned. Keep in mind also that the more paper dollars are printed, the more they lose their value. And conversely, when paper currencies lose their value, gold goes up in price in those very same currencies.

And since central banks everywhere have been printing up paper dollars for decades, gold’s price has been steadily climbing in response.

Now that gold is on the menu for central banks, the race to print up paper currencies to buy gold is on.

It’s not rocket science.

Its economic science. Print paper and buy more gold. And the more they do it, the higher the gold and silver prices may go.

As always, what goes up can go down, so caveat emptor is the warning of the day.

“Watching the markets so you don’t have to”

(end)

(As mentioned please use the below disclaimer exactly) THANKS (Regulations)

Medicare

Fire Insurance

Guaranteed Lifetime Income Double digit returns are possible depending on age and time of withdrawal. Call or email for details: (530) 559 1214 Email: bayareaprocess@att.net

Shrinkflation Oct 5 2025

Shrinkflation at its best.

I read an article about what the author called “Shrinkflation”. I had heard that word before but always referred to the idea of shrinkflation as “packaging inflation”.

Packaging inflation, or Shrinkflation, if you want to use that word, refers to companies dealing with higher production costs by reducing the amount of whatever it is that is sold instead of increasing the price.

If you ever see, and we all have, “new” size stamped all over the label, or words such as “family size”, “larger size”, “party pack” or “value size”, you are seeing the precursor to Shrinkflation.

What companies do is introduce these larger sizes, and charge more for them. Then, over time, they slowly reduce the amount (be it weight, volume or liquid measure), until they get back to the original size, or close to it, all the while the price remains.

The weight of the Hershey’s bar in the 1950’s was about four ounces. A honker of a bar. This was its standard off the candy shelf size. Today it weighs about 1.5 ounces.

To top it off, the price of the four-ounce chocolate bar was a nickel. Today’s reduced version costs on average $1.30.

Do the math, and today’s bar has had a 6,610% increase since the 1950’s.

Yikes!

Beside the bait and switch method of size manipulation to get you used to a higher price thinking you get more, then slowly shrinking the amount you get over time while keeping the price elevated, packaging inflation is a bit faster in accomplishing the task but just as stealthy.

Millions are spent in research to make the necessary changes to packages to avoid raising prices and instead just give less of something.

Shaping bottles with a “waistline” or conical bottoms skinnies up the volumes. Making cereal boxes the same dimension in front but reducing the width makes them appear the same size but with less.

Gum sleeves may have a “blank” spot where a piece of gum used to be. You don’t see the blank until after you’ve bought it and opened it up.

Ice cream tubs may still look like a gallon tub but are miniature same shape versions.

Beer companies added water and sold it as “light” beer. Potato chip companies fill the bags with air so you can’t tell the amount. Ice cream, butter and cream cheese companies came up with the “whipped’ version which contains more air. And air is free and takes up space to boot.

Coffee is packaged in 12 ounce bags instead of the usual pound it used to be sold by.

Pill bottles are stuffed with cotton to take up room so us shakers cannot hear the empty space. They say the cotton is to stop the pills from breaking but we know better.

Eggs are still sold by the dozen but one day we might see the “eleven” pack. Not just yet however, so the price just keeps going up. Same with a gallon of milk.

Don’t look now but some toilet paper companies have (brilliantly I might add) increased the size (diameter) of the cardboard roll so you get less paper. Didn’t know that one did you?

That’s the “sh*ts” ain’t it?

Like I said, companies are shelling out millions to marketers to come up with new ways to save money while trying to put one past you.

Or better said, to put “less” past you.

Less product that is.

And we can’t really blame them. They don’t want you to get mad and stop buying their products. And they don’t want to raise prices. So they just give you less. And they find ways to give you less without making it too obvious.

All of this has given me a headache. So I better go buy a bottle of aspirin.

Or buy two bottles, as a bottle of aspirin ain’t what it used to be.

Literally.

“Watching the markets so you don’t have to”

(end)

(As mentioned please use the below disclaimer exactly) THANKS (Regulations)

Both Turkey Matters and Pickleball Matters are in full swing.

Two ways to help feed the hungry.

Turkey Matters I match funds for Thanksgiving meals for Interfaith Food Ministries

Link here: https://www.interfaithfoodministry.org/

Thanks for helping !

Marc

Getting a Handle on Propane cost Oct 4 2025

Let us get those expenses down

Getting a handle on Propane Costs

With inflation on the forefront of almost everyone’s mind and hammering down our pocketbooks, reducing those expensive yet necessary household costs can be a difficult endeavor. Energy costs are a big one when it comes to budget-busting items and those of us who use propane know it can be a pricey and ongoing expense.

Enter The Propane Collective. Established in late 2023 as a community solution to
ever-increasing propane costs, its founder, Janet Maineri, already pioneered one of the first local propane “co-ops” in the United States back in 2005 called the Coloma-Lotus Co-op. The concept was a simple one: get a whole bunch of people to agree to switch to a single propane company and use that as leverage to lower the price of propane for its members in the Coloma-Lotus community.

The idea grew out of her view that the propane industry often lacked price consistency as well as price transparency. Operating on a volunteer basis only, the Co-op she founded was a word-of-mouth type of arrangement with her friends and neighbors.

Fast forward two decades later and the Co-op had grown to the point where operating it as a volunteer effort became unmanageable. As a result, in 2023, Maineri transitioned the Coloma-Lotus Co-op into a membership-based offering called The Propane Collective.

Today, members pay a small fee to gain access to negotiated rates, leveraging the group’s buying power. Through this structure, Maineri strives to obtain lower pricing, greater transparency, and improved customer service.

Members of The Propane Collective receive free tank monitoring, propane discounts based on a published wholesale rate, zero delivery fees on routed service, and competitive tank rental costs. Membership is also available to those who own their own tanks.

The Propane Collective serves a growing number of communities across El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Sacramento, and Yuba counties. Maineri publishes the company’s propane rate history going back to January 2024, which can be viewed on its website: www.propanecollective.com.

Maineri speaks highly of The Propane Collective’s exclusive supplier, noting their alignment with the Collective: “We’re fortunate to work with a local, family-owned company with decades of experience. They’re big enough to meet our collective needs yet small enough to maintain a personal touch. And when you call, you’ll reach someone right here in California,” Maineri said.

Maineri also shared feedback she’s received from members: “I love hearing from members. One woman told me she was saving so much on propane she could actually keep her home warmer. That just made my day,” she said.

Co-ops and collective type entities are nothing new and they can provide all sorts of goods and services and propane groups are no exception.

In my opinion, and from many years of buying propane, I consider the propane business to be very competitive—which, at times, may work against customers rather than for them.

In my November 1, 2025 article entitled “Squeezing Down Utility Bills”, I wrote; “As for propane, well on that one I am stuck. I tried switching companies every so often for the teaser rate, but changing tanks every time I did that was a pain. And the initial deals they offer you to switch expire quickly so you are soon right back paying regular prices. I could own my own tank, but besides being a hassle to do so, I would then be on the hook for its integrity and safety and that I am not interested in”.

As for my concerns regarding propane, I couldn’t have said it better myself than I did back then. LOL.

In conclusion, a grass roots group like the Propane Collective may offer benefits beyond just being a one-off homeowner like me shopping for a way to lower my energy costs. Although there are pros and cons for just about any method of procurement, an entity like The Propane Collective might be worth taking a look at.

More information can be found at www.propanecollective.com. (530) 881-1189

“Watching the markets so you don’t have to”

(end)

(As mentioned please use the below disclaimer exactly) THANKS (Regulations)

This article expresses the opinion of Marc Cuniberti and is not meant as investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities or join any entity or group mentioned here, nor represents the opinion of any bank, investment firm or RIA, nor this media outlet, its staff, members or underwriters. No guarantees are implied herein on the company mentioned in today's article. Mr. Cuniberti holds a B.A. in Economics with honors, 1979, and California Insurance License #0L34249 His insurance agency is BAP INC. insurance services. Email: news@moneymanagementradio.com

Update 9/11/2025

YAHOO FINANCE TODAY:

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