Silver punched through the 12 dollar barrier today and currently spot is $12.05. It's been a while...
All things considered, I'd rather have conditions unfold to enable me to purchase a few Morgan dollars at better prices, so higher silver won't help. One thing some coin collectors [and bullion buyers] tend to forget is that if they are still actively building a collection, they benefit more from declining coin and metal prices than rising prices. The more bargain purchases that can be made, the greater the ultimate gain will be. So I hope silver prices go to the moon,... but not just yet.
silver up I was glad to see the timing on the rise. I've been holding some silver till the price went back up. I'm going to a show this weekend and may unload some. Then the price can go back down for a while.
silver and gold and the bullion market - off topic Good morning, Collecting coins for 50 odd years, has exposed me to the precious metals markets - to my profit, TYVM! So I follow it extremely close both as a collector and a very serious investor so pardon me as I drift a bit. Gold temporarily broke 600 and silver broke 12 and indeed, the gold/silver ratio dropped to 49. Strong resistance for gold is at 625. Near term support is at 580. 600 and 12 are psychological resistance levels and make headlines, so this is good. The gold/silver ratio dropping to 49 is key because being in the first states of a long term bull market for precious metals and commodities (in my opinion) we should continue to see a reversion to the mean with the gold/silver ratio. Historically (at least for the known history of mankind), this ratio has been 1:15-20. During the great bull market of the late 70's (rono was selling lots of junk silver to pay for schooling), gold doubled to 850 while silver went up tenfold to around 50 - er, this is 1:17. For this and other demand and supply side issues, I've always felt the profit potential from silver was much superior to that of gold. This doesn't mean that I don't want to own gold, just that I want to overweight towards silver. This group will normally lean towards bullion in the form of rounds or ingots or the AE series, etc. Other ways to invest are with the new gold and silver ETF's - gold GLD, IAU, IGE and silver SLV. Supposedly, these are backed with bullion, albeit some of the purists say it's mostly paper. Another bullion investment is the closed end mutual fund Central Fund of Canada CEF which goes 60/40 gold/silver bullion. Note that the ETF's are taxed at 28% while CEF is at 15%. Or you can invest in any number of mutual funds that go with precious metals like Tocqueville TGLDX, Vanguard VGPMX (closed to new investors) or US Global UNWPX. These are pm funds, rather than pure play gold and cover the other metals. If you want more coverage and great leverage, you can invest in individual mining stocks for the different metals. For gold I like GG and NXG and AUY. For silver I like CDE, PAAS, SLW, SSRI and AEMLW. For palladium PAL. Lastly, you can play the futures market, but it's hard, tricky and I'm clueless - so be very careful in this arena. As for us collectors getting squeezed with rising prices, feh. They will have less of an impact on good stuff, and hurt more with the mundane. Also, if silver and gold are getting pricey, there is always the coppers and nickels to keep us busy. Geez folks, the world of coin collecting is so vast, there is always a way to skin the cat. We need to use our knowledge to better our collections for fun . . . and profit. peace, rono
Just as a caution to all, giving or taking investment advice is fraught with danger. For example, the post above fails to mention that CEF and SSRI are PFICs for US investors and may require the annual filing of form 8621 to recognize each year's gains as ordinary income and cause all sorts of other grief unless you are so mega-wealthy that your personal army of legal and tax advisors have everything under control. But then again, I'm dispensing advice so you'd better ignore me too just to play it safe and I take back everything I said. It's a lot easier to just buy a coin.
thanks, cloudsweeper, I concur and apologize for not including disclaimers. I wasn't attempting to advise anyone to invest or not, but rather discuss some of the options other than pure coins. However, I apologize if my postie was taken otherwise. I try to keep my investments such as those mentioned in tax deferred accts and thereby avoid having to deal with the blue meanies at the IRS. CEF is a closed end canadian fund, but SSRI is traded on the NASDAQ. Many mining stocks have foreign tax implications and that's why I keep them in deferred accts. CEF is traded on the AMEX. And tax implications is huge when it comes to collectables (coins) as the rate is 28% and the new gold and silver Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are considered collectables by the IRS. This does have serious tax implications if you own them taxable and have capital gains. Again, I apologize if my postie was taken as advice. peace, rono
