Ron Paul’s investment strategy: Prepare for doomsday

Ron Paul has an investment portfolio that’s worth anywhere between $2.44 million and $5.46 million, and the Wall Street Journal has taken a closer look at his holdings. Paul’s investments wildly diverge from the typical portfolio: Sixty-four percent of his investments are in gold and silver-mining stocks, and he holds no bonds and almost no business stock funds.

That’s not a surprise for the nation’s most prominent goldbug. But it’s also an extremely risky strategy in the current economy, where gold, silver and precious metals have dropped precipitously in the last few months of 2011. Here’s what one Connecticut investment manager told the Journal about Paul’s portfolio:

Mr. Bernstein says he has never seen such an extreme bet on economic catastrophe. “This portfolio is a half-step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and nine-millimeter rounds,” he says. There are many possible doomsday scenarios for the U.S. economy and financial markets, explains Mr. Bernstein, and Rep. Paul’s portfolio protects against only one of them: unexpected inflation accompanied by a collapse in the value of the dollar.