By Timothy Strauts

Municipal bonds had another good year in 2012 as interest rates continued to fall and, despite making a number of high profile headlines, municipal bankruptcies were contained. With interest rates on municipal bonds at 45-year lows, what can investors expect in 2013?

Fiscal Cliff
The "Fiscal Cliff" compromise answered the question as to whether interest on municipal bonds would be taxed in 2013. Municipal bonds avoided all the various proposals to eliminate or reduce their tax exemption. In fact, the increase in the top income tax rate to 39.6% from 35.0% may make tax-free municipals more attractive for some high income investors. After a sell-off in December the municipal market has rallied as investors have shaken off concerns about potential changes to muni bonds' tax treatment in the near term. But the tax status of municipal bonds is far from resolved in Congress.

Credit Quality

There are many different strategies to trade stocks and one of them is to find insider trading of stocks. When corporate insiders trade in their own securities, they must report their trades to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), usually within a few business days of the trade. Insider trading cannot be based on material non-public information. However, many investors believe that corporate insiders may have better insights into the growth of a company and its proceedings.

In this article, I will focus on notable insider buy transactions (market cap greater than $200 million) filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 12, 2012. I have also included the key financial metrics for the first three companies. You can use this list as a potential starting point for your analysis.

Definition of Insider: Corporate insiders are either a company's officers, directors, or any beneficial owners of more than ten

Harry Browne developed a simple system called the Permanent Portfolio which invested equally in gold, stocks, long-term treasury bonds and cash. The idea is reminiscent of the Modern Portfolio Theory where you diversify into asset classes that do not move up or down with high correlation. The performance chart of this originally conceived idea is below:

Chart compliments of crawlingroad.com

(click to enlarge)

The Permanent Portfolio Mutual Fund

There are mutual funds that have taken the Permanent Portfolio concept and altered it somewhat. One example is the Permanent Portfolio Mutual Fund (PRPFX) that allocates 20% gold, 5% silver, 10% Swiss franc, 15% US stocks and foreign real estate and natural resources, 15% aggressive growth stocks, 35% Dollar assets.

Chart compliments of Google.com

(click to enlarge)

Between the 10 year period of 2002 until the end of 2011, the Permanent Portfolio tracked by Crawlingroad delivered a 9.33% compound annual growth rate