LONDON, ENGLAND – And so begins a new chapter…

We left the United States nearly two years ago. We left everything behind, including our clothes and our valuables. We just packed a small suitcase, grabbed our passports, and hit the road like outlaws running from justice…

We traveled across North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan, hopping from country to country, town to town, sleeping in whatever cheap accommodation we could find.

Along the way, we found each other again as a family.

When you take on an epic challenge – like traveling around the world without any advance planning –and you do it with the people you love most in the world, it’s an incredibly bonding experience.

Kate and I fell back in love. We decided we never want to separate our family again.

But that’s all in the past now, because today we return to the United States and begin the next adventure together…

Next Adventure

We left Japan in mid-December and made our way to Canada.

First we spent two weeks in Medicine Hat, Alberta with my brother and his family, where it was below freezing and there was snow on the ground.

The children loved it! We went tobogganing and snowboarding and had snowball fights. Our children were born in Florida, so snow and ice was a novelty for them.

Then on Christmas Day we flew to London, and we’ve been here for the past two weeks. We’ve been using this time to prepare and gather ourselves for the next challenge, which begins later today, when we arrive on U.S. soil for the first time in nearly two years.

Oh… and my grandmother turned 100 last week, so we had a big family party. My entire family came together from all over the world. There were more than 80 people there.

Here’s my grandmother blowing out the candle on her Bridge-themed birthday cake, with my father and I alongside her…

PhotoCelebrating next to my grandmother on her 100th birthday

I’m writing to you now from Gatwick airport in London. We’re about to board a flight to Miami…

We’ll spend tonight in Florida. Then tomorrow we’ll drive a thousand miles to Baltimore, where I’ll be meeting with Bill Bonner, Dan Denning, and Maria Bonaventura (our managing editor) to talk about a new project we’re working on. I can’t say much about it yet, but stay tuned…

In the meantime, let me tell you about my strategy for getting rich with public investments over the next 20 years…

Simple Strategy

If you’ve been reading these postcards, you know my strategy is simple:

Buy the stocks of the best dividend-raising companies in the world when everyone else is selling them. (This happens once every decade or two.) Then wait.

Do nothing. Read some books. Start a new hobby. Go fishing.

Then, when everyone’s euphoric and buying stocks, sell. And turn it all into gold. (This also happens once every decade or two.) Then wait.

Do nothing. Read some books. Start a new hobby. Go fishing.

Right now, stocks are EXTREMELY overvalued. As in, breaking records. This is one of those rare times when you sell stocks and turn it all into gold.

Kate and I sold it all and turned everything into gold in the fall of 2018. Now we’re waiting for the moment when everyone hates stocks and wants to sell.

I CONSERVATIVELY expect to quadruple our money over the next nine years. And then quadruple it again over the following 10 years. A 16x return.

The first quadruple comes when the Dow-to-Gold ratio falls below 5. (Bill calls that the “rendezvous with destiny.”) The ratio is at 18.82 as I write this.

The second quadruple comes from buying the world’s best dividend-raising stocks at low valuations… and then compounding growing dividends for another 10 years.

In the meantime, I’m “going fishing.”

– Tom Dyson

Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [email protected].

FROM THE MAILBAG


Questions for Tom about selling physical gold… and about his comments that bitcoin went through a speculative bubble in 2017

Reader comment: Thank you for your postcards. I enjoyed your China segment immensely.

My concern is how to sell the physical gold. It seems that the slippage in the gold coin train would be a killer. Can you comment? Again thank you!

Tom’s response: “Slippage in the gold coin train” is something I’ve thought about, too. Commissions and spreads are definitely bigger on gold coins than on a typical stock or bond.

I console myself with the thought that when it comes time to sell gold and get back into stocks, gold will be the hottest investment on Wall Street and everyone will be buying it. Hopefully, we’ll even get a premium. We’ll see.

Reader comment: You commented that Bitcoin went through a mania in 2017. Actually, that was its third mania.

Shortly after launching, it was at 6 cents, and rose to $24, for a 400-fold increase. From there, it dropped back to about $2.20 to form an interim low, from which it rose to $1,019, for a 450-fold increase. Then it dropped back to a new interim low of around $220, from which it almost reached $20,000 in 2017, for a 90-fold increase.

Given that it has passed through 3 manias in 10 years, I would not be so sure that it will not enter another one.

On a separate note, I’m really enjoying your tales of the road. Good luck, and I look forward to more tales.

Tom’s comment: Thanks for the kind words! Please keep writing us at [email protected]. Kate and I read every note you send in.