Gold coins being sold?

Consider Mutual Funds

This horse has been flogged and beaten....however, a couple of more whips won't hurt either

(1) IRS takes your profits on mutual funds, even if you haven't sold them (gotta love that!)

(2) there is a difference between wealth and profit. Profit(loss) is the difference between what you paid and what you sold it for. Wealth is the value of the asset AT THE TIME the calculation is made. Thats why companies have INCOME STATEMENTS and BALANCE SHEETS....two different things.

 

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I just don't want you misleading people like that. But everyone is free to do what they want with their money, and if pretending that stocks selling far below cost basis are not losses, you are free to do so.

 

Regarding the OP... prices of Low Gold coins have trended up with bullion (as always). What other trends are folks seeing ?

 

So has anyone else noticed that after gold passed the $1050 mark more ppl are selling gold coins or not? anyone?

Just so there isn't any question, I believe the price of gold will continue climbing slowly. Yeah!! A little higher, with this economy for certain!! Maybe even reach $1500 before it starts heading south, we'll see...

 

Let me put it simply. Let's say a person who paid $500 for a gold coin wishes to sell it. He walks into the coin shop at 10am and the dealer offers him $1000 for it. He wants to think it over, walks around the store, then accepts the offer at 10:05. You would say that there was $0 profit at 10am and $500 profit at 10:05 with the entire gain occurring in 5 minutes. I would say that the profit existed at 10am [and probably prior] and the coin owner can either let it ride or sell, but the profit still exists. I think you are hung up on tax calculations of gain or loss that are based on sale prices, and the fact that the future is different from the present.

Also, if you think there is no gain unless you sell, it is logical to presume you think there is no loss unless you sell. But just as it is foolish to think there is no loss until you sell, it is equally foolish to think there is no gain. Selling is irrelevant to whether there is a gain or loss. It merely freezes the calculation. I've seen people badly hurt because they had the mindset that there was no loss until they sold, and this kept them in a losing investment far longer than justified. It works both ways.

But we have both given our viewpoints and everyone can decide for themselves how they want to think.

 

Interesting debate.

If the guy didn't sell at 10:00 am ...and then went back at 10:05 to sell, what if the offer to buy was not $1,000 but $980 as the spot price went down during those 5 minutes. The profit would have been $480 and not $500. You don't have a profit until something is sold. Conditions change every minute.

There is also no loss until you sell. I had a stock that I bought for $5,000. I wanted to sell but the price tanked and it was only worth $3,000. If I had of sold, I would have taken a loss...but I didn't ..I thought it would go back up. I waited another 6 months. The stock went down to $2,000. I needed some money so I sold and took the loss. Had I not sold and the stock went back up to $5,000 or even rose to $5,500 and I sold, I would have made a profit of $500 instead of taking the loss.

People have free will and when a person decides to sell has nothing to do their percieved profit or loss. They can read the balance sheet and they decide when to sell. If they sell when the item is worth less than they payed, it's their decision. It's up to them to decide wether to take a profit or a loss.

 

I agree. A profit is a profit. All the sales transaction does is freeze the profit [or loss] at a point in time, but it doesn't create the profit or make it go away. Some people get their definitions from the tax code. Others deal with what is.

Everyone is free to think what they want.

 

You HAD the loss long before you TOOK the loss. You can't take what you didn't already have. The fact that the loss [or profit] may change from one point in time doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In the real world, most things change over time, but they still exist. It is what it is whether you choose to take action or not.

 

I had a percieved loss before I took it. It wasn't a loss until I sold. If I didn't sell and the stock went back up into positive territory ..it would be a percieved gain. Actual gain and actual loss is determined by when you choose to sell (i.e. make an actual transaction). Anything else is just "on paper" and not real.

 

Wow. Just wow. :rolling:

 

Best of all would be to do both: Deal with what is, and while you're doing that, use definitions that the rest of the world understands.

So, for example, I bought a generic double eagle some years back at $460, and now it's worth well over $1000. Therefore I'm certainly better off due to the increased price of gold. But I can be more precise; there's a technical term for the exact way in which I'm better off. I have an unrealized gain.

I don't have a profit, because I haven't sold the coin. But don't misunderstand me--when I say that I don't have a profit, I'm not somehow denying that I'm better off or that the coin's value has increased. The reason why I don't have a profit is just a technicality in the accounting principles: the gain is not called a profit until you sell. That's why the term unrealized gain exists--so that we can all talk about "what is" without confusing our accountants.

Cloud, you keep using the term profit to refer to *any* old way of being better off than you were before, when in fact that specific word has a more restricted meaning. You and everybody else in this thread are all trying to say the same thing; you're just using different words to say it, which is impeding communication and agreement greatly. I would gently suggest that you start using the same words that everybody else uses, so that we can all understand each other on the first try. An unrealized gain is a real, actual, perfectly legitimate form of increased financial well-being, but it is not a real profit, because profit is a technical accounting term with a precise meaning.

If you know someone who's holding on to losing investments because "there's no loss until you sell", then you know someone who's very confused about the difference between accounting and reality. The solution is to go explain that difference to this person, not to increase his confusion even further by sloppy use of language that appears to deny that any difference exists! After all, it's precisely because accounting and tax law are different from reality that accounting and tax law need their own set of carefully defined technical terms....

 

my 2 and six

I HAVE TO AGREE WITH GD
you dount have a profit untill you sell
I have a land with fpp now but when i bought it it had not just like a coin before you send it for gradeing it goes up in value with graded
I have land that i bought for x was worth z now worth y
But i still owe for it
On paper iam worth y but my papments are a tax a rightoff so
Untill i sell then i am in profit but like land and coins
It is only worth what another person is willing to pay for it
But to get back to the thread is about yes i see a lot more gold coins on the market
Dave

 

Team 1 is ahead. There is no clock in investing. If there was, team 1 would be able to choose to end the game while ahead and declare that being ahead is the "win." In the real world of investing, either something is yours or it isn't. This is why companies mark-to-market. Your concept of "profit" is just an IRS concept.

 

Regarding 1, I agree. The increasee in value of an asset is a profit. You can call it paper profit to designate the fact that you still own the investment, but it is profit nonetheless.

Regarding 2, you have an unrealized gain, unrealized just defining the continuation of ownership, but you have a gain nonetheless. You have your profit right up to the time you decide to "take" the profit, but nothing can be taken that did not already exist.

What you can't seem to recognize is that the profit or loss exists all of the time. "Taking" the profit is just the terminal act of the investment process.