What is your Sell strategy?

If you back the US Dollar with Gold - then gold by default becomes the world's reserve currency. The US only ranks 4th in gold production behind - South Africa, China and Australia. Coupled with what is written above -by medoraman - just don't think a currency backed by gold is a good idea at this point.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

The "HOW" would be a nice add to this thread. :thumb: I don't plan to sell any time soon so I have not worked this out. I don't like the idea of selling to a dealer who will give me x% of spot or via a service like Ebay where they get a cut. I would prefer to sell at spot through a free service like my local Craigslist. Anyone had any experience with this or through some other free(ish) service?

 

As the price of PM increase, dealers should be asking larger discount to buy from you and a lesser when selling as volatility is increasing and their risk is downside. So as prices increase, expect more difficulty both in the commercial market and other exchanges in getting a good price , except in my opinion, EBAY and similar, because that will be where the unknowing people are buying PM and think it going "to the sky". The risk there is if they would pay if prices drop $10 oz before they receive your package and return it? The risks of buying selling physical seems higher to me then using SLV or GLD to make money without worrying about selling soon enough. You can buy or sell in seconds in a brokerage account. Also you can "protect" your holdings using options.

Jim

 

I would disagree with just about everything written above. It is factually incorrect. The amount of gold mined annually is about 2% of the total stock, so even a fairly large fluctuation in annual production has virtually no impact on the economy. There isn't going to be any rioting, just as there was no rioting over the past 5 years as the housing market went into a depression. The late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by a series of "panics" led by the international bankers struggling to get the US off of the gold standard and damage the business of the banks in the western US in favor of dominance by the New York establishment. The remarkable thing about these engineered panics is that the lasted far shorter than the recessions in our scientifically managed economy. There is a tremendous amount of disinformation about how the gold standard operated. Most people think they know, but probably 99 out of 100 are wrong. It's an interesting study and some of the writings of Dr. Antal Fekete are a good place to start. Both the Keynesian and Austrian schools have it wrong, possibly by design. Just about any good economic text will explain why gold is preferable to using fish, cotton or other commodities as money.

Don't take my word for it. Research it yourself. Dr. Fekete is a good place to start since he is one of the only people I know that has spent considerable time investigating the history of the gold standard and how it actually worked in practice instead of pontificating about the theory.

 

Yes, having a gold and/or silver standard is no guarantee that there won't be problems. No system this side of heaven can do that. But what can be manipulated more easily, metal or paper?

 

I too sold some stuff already but I still have a bit more of the quality pieces that will go for a premium above spot and I will take my time unloading those coins because honestly I don't care if I sell or not. Of course $45 an oz will change my mind quickly!!

Oh I forgot to add that I will continue to sell here and there but only my junk silver. The .999 I will hold for the $45oz!! :hail:

 

You may have posted this in jest but since you posed the question... There are several characteristics that make a good medium of exchange and several books address this issue. Further there is a difference between currency and money. Among other things "money" must be easily divisible, easy to carry, be of limited availability, durable, must smell nice and so forth. You don't have to think about it very long to see that fish do not meet these criteria. BTW, I just threw in the "smell nice" criteria.

 

I usually do not sell, but most recently, I sold several common minted silver art bars that I no longer wanted. I sold them to a local dealer (for a profit) and used the proceeds to upgrade my silver art bar collection by buying some very rare silver art bars to add to my collection. With spot above $30/oz, it was a good time for me to sell those art bars and to use the proceeds to upgrade my collection with the silver art bars that I really wanted.

 

Not sure what my sell strategy is... It could be for an emergancy, wanting to cash-in at a feeling the moment is right. Or, save for near retirement.

 

Howdy,

I'm with many of you in that I have both a core investment holding of bullion and a portion that's speculative. This means that my core holding really isn't for sale. In these days of Quantitative Easing and a global race to see who can debase their currency fastest and furthest, having a core holding of precious metals is crucial to my sleep at nights. Like my grandkids with their stuff animal 'bed buddies', my bullion is MY bed buddy. ;-)

With my speculative holdings (these are mostly in paper and securities (mutual funds, ETFs, stocks)) it's just another momentum investment. I've been a momentum investor for years and it seems to work best for me. By this I look for a trend of some asset class that's diverging from the pack and developing a strong and stready trend line - and overweight it a bit in order to help my overall returns. I can have a fairly diverse and well rounded overall portfolio and match the returns of the market, but with a momemtum play I can take a few coins, overweight a trending sector and thereby beat the average market returns. Now, being a coin collector, I was aware of gold and silver breaking out back in 2001/2002 and therefore able to climb aboard early on in the trend. In general, I try to 'scale in' and if need be, scale out.

For example, when I find a trend that looks promising, I'll make a small play with say 25% of my intended total play and watch to see if it works (i.e. makes money). If it does, I'll add another 25% and watch to see if it works. If it does, I'll throw in the other 50%. And I'll watch. Now if my initial play doesn't make money I will never, ever add to it. And if it loses money, I'll have a mental stop loss of let's say 10%. And this same 10% mental stop loss applies to a running trend. If there was to be a pull back of 10%, I'd back off perhaps 25% of my speculative play and watch for further erosion. If it continued to slide, I'd scale out further.

That pattern is that you add to winning plays and subtract from losing plays and never the opposite. The opposite, or trying to buy dips and all, is where the huge risk lies. It's akin to playing 'double or nothing' and normally end badly.

Note that his is exactly how I play blackjack - if I win, I increase my bet by a percentage - say 25-33%. I might go from 2 units to 3 and if I win again, to 4, etc. And I will contnue to use this partial parlay until I lose a hand at which point I start over. I never, ever, increase a losing play.

Now with the silver (and gold) markets as relates to my speculative play THE TREND IS YOUR FRIEND. Let me repeat, The Trend is your Friend. When you've got the greatest bull market of our lifetimes staring you in the face, YOU RIDE IT. You hang on with fingers and toes and you ride the sucker until it stops. If you get heebiejeebies and can't sleep, take some profits by all means so you can sleep, BUT YOU KEEP RIDING THE BULL. Don't anticpate it stopping - wait until it actually does. And don't listen to the gd noise and talking heads on TV. Just ride the bull as long as its running. You don't have to be the first on a trend or the last off - to make a lot of money if it's a decent stready trend.

Any my friends, this bull market in gold and silver that started in 2001/2002 hasn't really even blinked.

So, at what point will I start selling silver, WTF knows? When it pulls back over 10%. This means it would be back down at the $27-28 range and gold around $1250.

just some thoughts about my madness,

peace,

rono

 

rono, great post! Love the transparency!

 

I had to sell over 50oz of silver to pay for tuition and I just went down to the central branch of Scotiabank at this branch they buy and sell bullion and I got around spot price - fees that were around $15. You can probably also sell it to a coin dealer. One thing to note when you sell it to Scotiabank it counts as income and Scotiabank sends you a T4 so save all of your receipts. I believe you only pay taxes on half of the profits you make on the sale of pms.

side note Scotiabank is considered Canada's #1 bullion bank but when I went to the Main branch in the Capital of Canada they had no clue about bullion they only knew Maple leaf coins and would not buy my Philharmonics and also they payed a samll % less for SAE and libertads

 

There are so many of these types of threads, I don't remember which one I mentioned that the stock market going down doesn't always mean the PM prices would go up. We are seeing such a reaction in the market today. Yesterday was more the beginning of this trend of both down. The stock traders, after a decrease of rather large proportion over the last 3 days, and possible tomorrow, needed margin money as most were raging bulls with little cash surplus. So they sold their PM holdings to eliminate those margin calls. Yesterday it appeared the retail traders were buying PM due to the crisis(es), but those seem to have dropped out today. It is a risky call to buy more PM here, but if you are cash heavy, a little might turn positive. I have been buying distressed stocks I have previously passed on excessive evaluation, but now are looking much better Luck to you, make your own decisions, as I have been wrong before.
Jim

 

Too many rumors on the crisis(s) and oil, so I removed 50% of my PM, The profit paid for the remaining, so using market money with some cash left over. Just wanted to mention it as several have expressed interest.

Jim

 

Sometimes I think it might be easier to invest without ever watching TV, listening to the radio, or reading newspapers.

 

One would think, but it can be dangerous in the near term. And I view Silver as rumor/speculation/fear driven stock above $20 where actual needful use comes in from jewelry and industrial. In this range, when I own interests, one has to watch it consistently. It did help compensate some for my paper losses in non-PM holdings

Jim
​

 

I agree about the $20 level. That's my view also.

 

I would say the need to watch the common press is important, mainly as a contra indicator. Honestly, over the years, the worst I felt in my stomach about an investment, but thought it was right in my head, has always turned out to be the best. A couple of years ago when the market crashed, putting money in, then the market going down more, so I put more in, not easy to do when the media is constantly screaming the world is coming to an end. However, it was the media scraming about how horrible it was that convinced my brain that putting more money in IS the right thing to do.

Same today, the higher the volume that oil and PM's will hit highs 2, 3, or 4 times higher than today convinces me there will be room for it to fall in the future, and maybe fall quickly. I may not time it perfect, but I think I will have the correct direction. I remember the late 70's, the screaming just getting shriller and shriller. REversion to the mean is an extremely powerful force that is very hard to avoid. I invest on that principal.

 

Hmm. Sometimes a sharp rise is a spike, and sometimes it's a shift to a new "mean". Sometimes a sharp drop is a dip, and sometimes... well, let's just say I'm not expecting my Nortel stock to "revert to the mean" any time soon.

 

That's the problem with general principles. Generally, they work. But occasionally you get wiped out. I'm sure there is probably someone out there waiting for oil to revert to $2 and gold to revert to $35. For years there were people waiting for the Dow Jones Industrial Average to revert to $900 because there was some sort of gap in the chart that "had to be filled" after the breakout in the early 80s. Maybe someday they will turn out to be correct, but the loss in the time value of money can cripple a portfolio. If investing was as easy as buying what drops and shorting what goes up, everyone would be wealthy.