I wrote a book a couple of months ago titled Nobody Knows Anything about some of the basics of investing. The book has done well and it seems to have struck a cord with readers. In the book, I try to explain that by listening to the "experts", investors are doing themselves a disservice. When the "experts" get it dead wrong, they don't pay, you do. So why not take some responsibility for your own investment decisions? The gurus don't care if you make money; they only care if they make money.

Much of what you hear is noise designed to match your fantasies. If you dream at night of gold going to $10,000 an ounce, you can listen to Jim Rickards. And maybe he's right. On the other hand you may belong to the choir that hates gold. If you do, perhaps you want to pay more attention to Harry Dent, who is calling for $400 to $800 gold in 2017. Or maybe they are both wrong but understand the best way to sell anything is to preach Armageddon of some variety and fill all the fantasies of your readers.

Jim Rickards rarely points out that he lost his first fortune while working for Long Term Capital Management. He had his entire fortune invested in LTCM stock. In my book, I discuss what happens when someone controls over 50% of any market at all. They have to lose because in a zero-sum market, due to transaction friction, the majority always loses.

LTCM became the market in their investments, so all anyone had to do to profit was to bet against them. When everyone loves the stock market, you should sell it. When everyone loves gold, you should drop it. When all people talk about at cocktail parties is real estate, dump it. I cover all of this in my book.

Likewise with Harry Dent. I haven't heard him say anything lately about his 1999 book titled "The Roaring 2000s," where he said the Dow would go to at least 21,000 and perhaps as high as 35,000 by 2008.