Is anybody still buying silver and gold?

Not bullion, not at these prices! Silver coins for my collection, sometimes. But not bullion. However I do still roll search on occasion.

 

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I have bought silver in the past but I don't know about buying gold right now. I know that gold prices are high so I am going to wait until they come back down or I am offered a good deal. Could someone tell me where there are some good sellers online so I can look up some prices?

 

Agreed

 

Wandered over to my local coin shop on my lunch break after the bounce earlier and picked up 10 Grizzlies, a Timberwolf, a 2011 Panda, and a 2011 Koala all for $4.50 over spot, same as the rest of the Maple Leaves. Beats the heck out of the online premiums on these coins. I was about the only person in there buying. Everybody else was selling. We'll see how that turns out in due time. =)

 

Provident Metals and Gainesville Coins are a couple of the more affordable online dealers, but their supplies are dwindling. APMEX is the big one, but less affordable. You could also check out NorthWest Territorial Mint and GoldMart.com. I also like to look on ebay to see what people are willing to pay although you will rarely find items there for less than elsewhere.

 

More Anecdotes

Well, that anecdote was told by a major G&S investor/newsletter writer who's on CNBC all the time, inc. "Fast Money", one of the more serious shows on that channel. I took it to mean that it so rare to find ANYONE now who thinks gold will go down--it's like the "cocktail party" index. 5-10 years ago all anyone could talk about was real-estate. Late 1990's it was tech stocks--I knew tech stock small investors who were like Moonies.

Here's another anecdote: Yesterday 8/23/11 my mail carrier announced the top in gold at $1860. Never heard him talk about gold before. He was comparing the gold price now to the internet stock bubble in the late 1990's (?). What in the heck does a mail carrier know about gold prices? I dunno, but I remember him saying to buy GE stock at the bottom in early '09 at $5. It's $15 today.

An interesting reverse twist on the "shoeshine boys" touting stocks in 1929, perhaps? I wish I knew. All I know is, I don't have the guts to pile into gold at $1800, after it's up 600%.......

 

There are two sides to the story. First, you should definitely pay attention to anecdotal evidence in the gold market. Second, you need to be careful not to overweight it in your decision making. Gartman doesn't have that good a track record, and is probably still behind with his sales a few weeks ago.

While some people are waking up to the gold bull market, keep in mind that this is what drives the market higher [and hopefully to incredible heights]. If nobody was buying, it wouldn't go up. I think only a tiny percentage of investors own significant amounts of gold, so hearing about some people buying is a sign that we might be entering the final stage of the bull market, but we aren't at the end yet. The end won't be cab drivers talking about gold. It will be drivers selling their cabs to buy gold.

 

I'm still buying, but only dressed up bullion The 010 ATB 5oz cv set, with cross hairs on the 25Anv Set. I think its a while before :dead-horse:

As for the shoe shine anecdote, I understand the principals back then, But we live in a very different day. Information travels faster then a blink of an eye, easily accessible, to a much wider audience, that connects people from around the world. Anyone can research, get advice, and even purchase, stocks, PM's ect without leaving his home. Anytime anyone gives me advice, I look into it. 6 degrees of separation right. Well were a talking society now! Weave been drilled to discuss any and all things. ADD to that every friend or relative now has a Masters in Psychology . Its easy to see how things get leaked. Heck we have sights for leaks. lol I could see how it would be time to get out back then, but not so much now. lol

 

Another thing to consider is that today we have high frequency trading algorithms, which in the case of silver trades an entire year's worth of mining volume in a single day on the paper market. I remember reading somewhere that HFT algos account for approximately 90% of the market, and that's probably not exact but somewhere in the ballpark. It's hard to envision anything the shoeshine boys, cab drivers, and average investors combined do would amount to more than a drop in the bucket relatively speaking, at least until the physical market calls the paper market's hand after which all bets are off.

 

Picked up some 2006 1/2 oz Timberwolves, a couple 1/2 oz Lunar Rabbits, a few Philharmonics, and some more Grizzlies today at a coin show. The 1/2 oz coins all went for $25 which seemed like a steal especially with the low mintage and collectibility on the T-Wolves which are pretty hard to find. I sold a 10 oz bar to pay for most of it though, my first sale

 

The $25 price for the Lunar Rabbit is great price because there are currenrtly huge premiums on Lunar coins of all sizes from what I have seen at past coin shows that I went to. That $25 that you paid for the Grizzly and T-Wolve silver coins are also a great deals in my opinion. You did very well. Congrats on your purchases.

 

I think that the demand for silver will keep going up, we are running out of reserves and it is becoming harder to find in the earth and mine.

 

The thing with silver is, it's hard to find a silver mine like the Comstock Lode. However, it's relatively easy to find silver mixed in with lead, zinc, copper, and gold ores. Production from ore has been steadily increasing over the past 10 years.

 

I haven't bought any gold since it was at $900 - $1,000. So, yes, it's been a while. I bought silver more recently, but when it was around $20 or so. I have no plans to buy either at the moment.

 

:yes:

 

I admit that my understanding of the futures market is limited, but I was under the impression that if one held a contract beyond a certain point, they had to take physical delivery or settle it for cash. Wouldn't this preclude HFT activity?

 

I'm not the most seasoned in this area either, but my understanding of HFT algos is that they get in and out for massive amounts of tiny, quick hit profits. So I don't think they're staying invested in anything long enough for it to expire.

 

Gold and silver are selling very well for me on ebay. I thought it would slow down but it has not.

 

I agree that it hurts buying gold now, having started buying in 08 at 900$.

I think the easy profits have been made, but I also think there is no way gold will permanently crash down under 1000$. I think the asian central banks will buy strongly to divest their massive forex reserves on any significant pullback. Gold/silver is still such a small market and small percentage of world financial assets/reserves.

 

It is actually the reverse for Pm. Cash settlement is the norm, and one has to designate they are taking physical when they open an order, and if on margin, have to pay up full value the period before their expiration, or else they are considered as a cash settlement. This prevents "sudden changes" from physical to cash or visa versa on/near the last day of settlement.

This does not prevent the HFT algorithms from participating in the ETFs, and major miners or royalty stocks. IMO.

Jim