Bullion crazy = financial problems?

Peace, In all honesty this does not make much sense. I am assuming you are talking about physical bullion. You are stating you have been BOTH buying and selling from $22 to $40 and back down again. That MIGHT be OK in tradition investments with a low in/out cost, (what traders do, but it is tough) but in physical bullion with premiums that are north of 10% - 15% it is a very difficult strategy to say the least. Any slight edge that may be gained by proper timing (very difficult) will totally be eaten up with the juice.

 

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Maybe, but since we are going on "gut" I would say this sword cuts both ways, as my gut is telling me that there would be close to zero so called stackers that have savings in the top 10% category.

 

That is part of my point. I know that if I didn't put the money I did in PMs, I'd have blown it in so many other ways it's scary.

The other part is this, I'm so tired of people blaming others for their problems that it irks me when I read somebody that is enabling their "woe is me" pity party. If they don't like their lot in life, change it. What good does somebody telling you that it's ok because you got bad info do? Besides nothing, of course.

 

For the first part, fair enough, that is what justafarmer was saying, but no matter how I read it, it still comes up as "Bad investing is better than no investing at all" This may be true, but it is such a small easy step to "A solid investment plan with a tradition mix of stocks bond and commodities which include metals"

For the second part, just because you are willing to take personnel responsibility does not alleviate others to conduct business in a moral ethical manner. As a side note though, I admit that you did not jump on the manipulator train as much as other but from this side of the fence, it appears that the stacker community in general was quick to "blame" the manipulators for the poor results of their decisions.

 

As to the OP, I agree, too many people went too far and lost a lot, and will probably continue to lose a lot not only in bullion but in any investment, because the way I see it, if they were pliable enough to jump on the bullion bandwagon before they knew what they were doing, and then lost control, chances are they are like that with every investment they make in life. I personally know people who lost millions, yes, millions, as in dollars, when they jumped on the Apple stock bandwagon. We all know where that went. The brightest stars are always the first to burn out. Corny but true.

 

Looking at the OP comments, I hung my hat on the word "obsessed" followed by "little to no cash". I think he is talking about people showing symptoms of addiction. They buy without thought and go into debt not realizing the consequences. Now regardless if they are a stacker, a doomsayer, someone hedging or using any other thought to validate purchasing; the point is: some out there buy/continue to buy, for no reason at all. They just don't know when to stop and go into financial ruin.

 

We mainly agree Peace, Mike, and JAF. I will agree any type of asset purchase is better than no purchase at all, and I as well do not like lack of personal responsibility. However, I equally dislike people like Mr. Sprott and websites who quote him as a "recognized expert". Yes, it is still everyone's responsibility to check out the facts for themselves, that is a big reason I even post here, hoping people would read my frustration and anger towards these boisterous claims by salesmen.

Think back a year or two ago here, all of the members posting how "only pm is money", they were "exchanging their worthless paper for REAL money", and "silver is going to $100 an ounce or more very quickly". Remember those? Well read the pm websites and these people were simply parroting what was being forced fed to them. Were they to blame for blindly believing it? Of course they were, but they probably wouldn't have made such an error if not for these fact twisting, scare inducing sales tactics. That is what I object to. We live in weird times, where stocks and bonds are tightly regulated as to what people can say about them, but any imbecile can create a website to pimp PM using whatever means necessary to get them to buy. If people really think PM is such a great "investment", then they should be glad to have any comments about buying or selling PM to be subject to the same SEC regulations. I am betting they wouldn't like that very much.

 

Very true and a good point. We cannot blame pm for this mess at all. PM is a great asset if bought at reasonable prices and used in the correct way.

My rule of thumb? Never buy any investment when you are scared. I don't care if you are scared of "missing the boat", scared of the dollar depreciating to nothing. Any fear is a red flag in investing, because if you are scared you are not thinking right and you can easily be manipulated. The only fear I accept is when I am buying when everyone else says to sell. In that case my head says yes, but my stomach is in knots.

 

Yes, Exactly, I think I posted this one before, but if you leave your wallet in open view on the seat of your car while parked in NYC and your wallet gets stolen, it IS your fault, but the criminal is still a criminal and you are still a victim.

 

I can't speak for Peace, but the way I make it work is to have the spread work in my favor. I find people who need to sell, and I buy from them at or under spot. I find people who want to buy, and I sell to them for a premium. People are willing to do this because the more established coin dealer here in town is hard to get along with, and I'm willing to buy and sell within his spread, which has been VERY wide lately.

Or, if I have a person willing to buy 20+ ounces of silver, I'll sell to them for less than the dealers will, and I'll turn right around that same day and place an order through Provident, typically putting all the money I received back into silver, but getting an extra ounce or two in the process. (For whatever reason, buyers are easier to find around here than sellers...)

If you buy and sell from dealers in both directions between $22 and $40 and back down to $18, of course you're going to be wasting a lot of money. But you don't have to buy and sell from dealers...

 

Really, is it that hard to fathom being able to buy items you can turn for a profit within the last 3 years while silver went up and down?

To be totally honest, I've done better with items that had the higher end of the range you suggested, and higher for profits in shorter periods of time. I'll even let you in on a secret that I've sold to dealers and made as much or more from them as I have peer to peer.

 

First of all, if they really do believe what they're saying, is it unethical? Don't get me wrong, I do believe some of these guys are clowns that do a show with a little car and big shoes and cry "banksters" when PM's drop .03%, and then state that they told you so when it goes up .02%, but who cares, in the end if they're not trying to be malicious or hurtful, and believe what they print, then how is it morally unethical? It's not...

For the most part, I don't care what the clown shows have to say, they can blame anybody they want, but a cheap mirror costs about $.99, and if they'd like, I'll buy them one and mail it to them if they're so broke they can't afford one.

Who are you talking about when you state "stacker community in general"? Are you referring to the posters on here, or the bloggers and salesman that call themselves the "stacker community"?

 

If everyone bought low and sold high, the highs would become the lows and the lows would become the highs.

When folks claim to claim to be able to time the market...statistically, it's very improbable.

 

Stupid people have First Amendment rights, too.

 

No, I do not consider the salesman part of the stacker community, since it is my strong belief they have very little Silver/Gold in their personnel accounts. The stacker community, I am referring to goes well beyond CT though. It is the folks I work with, the folks I play ball with and on-line folks in other forums. It is anyone who is HEAVILY over weighted in PM's and has the attitude of PM superiority to all other investment vehicles.

Now please understand, I was talking in generalities, but it is my observations, that the majority of these folks DO believe it is the 'MAN' who has manipulated the price downward, and if it was not for this manipulation, they would be sitting pretty with their stack. There are dozens of posts here on CT that state this, and as I said, this observation goes far beyond CT

 

Just a question, have you done this with straight up bullion, or with bullion that had a collectible component associated with it?

 

That is my point, I don't think they believe what they are saying.

Soooo..... two things here. The first is why do they permabulls have such a trusting nature with the likes of Jim Willie, Eric Sprott, and Ted Bulter. One of the major reasons to hoard metals is a general distrust of the folks around you. It just seems odd to me that folks who distrust the government, the banksters, the corporate big dogs, the Fed, etc. etc., seem so willing to give trust to this group of people when there is every reason to believe they have a different agenda.

The second thing is please comment on the post I wrote about Sprott. Do the research, check it out yourself, and see if you can understand how is net worth increased $150 million in 2013 while his followers got clobbered if this guy was truly eating his own dog food so to say.

 

My issue with the free speech argument is they are selling an "investment". They call it that, they are targeting investment funds of people. Do you really think brokers could make up a bunch of hooey how "the Fed is secretly manipulating prices, and the only way you will have money for retirement is to buy Apple stock from me. Its way undervalued and Bernanke is intentionally holding down its value, but he can't forever"? In the bad old days of pump and dump brokerages they did, and we outlawed such practices. Well we outlawed them for stocks and bonds, but the same thing is still alive and well in pm websites.

Maybe that should be the new term for these sites and salesmen, "PM pump and dumpers". I like it.

 

Sprott is a salesman first and foremost. He won't come out and tell you that, it would make it much harder for him to sell his funds if he told people that. He plays the game like all other salespeople, sell the goods he has in the most positive light he can, and feed into the mentality of those that are likely to be his customer. If that means blowing a bunch of sunshine up somebody's skirt, he does it.

If you were expecting him to set up his PSLV and not profit from it, I'm not sure what to tell you. I can't recall in the history of Wall St a firm that sets up their funds telling people they're not going to make any money from it. Investing is not a charity.

 

It's not really about being able to time the market, it's more about buying things that have a good probability of collectible gain. The easy ones were the Canada wildlife, cougar and moose....as an example...