Another Question, what were the premiums like in general + how did the premiums compare with larger size bullion vs smaller size bullion? Would premiums go down because prices have go up by so much and would that be the same with the smaller items? Because if this was true, it would be better to buy larger bullion now and for the same amount spent, you should end up with more gold or silver.
Were you here when @nonrecourse used to post? He argued that in ordinary times gold should make up 10% of your portfolio. So in these unusual times it would be normal to expect your PM holdings to make up more than 10% of your holdings, particularly as the POG has made such a good run lately. Currently PMs make up just over 20% of my SMSF holdings, when looking at my total wealth it's probably closer to 12%, so my strategy could be let it run until my PM holdings reach say 20% of my total wealth (or whatever floats your boat) and then sell progressively until I get back to the 10% level. It's not a new concept, you're just adjusting your portfolio to reflect whatever plan you've put in place. Then, say when gold makes up less than 10% of your total portfolio you might top up your yellow metal holdings.
People were buying pure silver, 925 but also junk, lots of junk infact. It really was a weird situation, people were scrambling for silver, they were grabbing what ever they could, but just like now, we see folk selling coins they've held for many years at the start of the this run; the same thing happened in December 2009, folk were tired / bored of holding their old silver from the 80's, they were glad to get rid of it, so much so, that often a seller would give a gift of a 50 cent round silver coin with a coin purchase (ebay). You could pick-up 925 silver Ten Dollar coins for $10.50, some more expensive, some cheaper. It was funny really because some coins were literally hated by the "old-crew" but loved by the "new". Those Ten dollar coins became popular and still sell ok. Anyway, those bags of junk sell well but when the market gets to capitulation mode, anything that is reasonably priced will sell quickly.
This is what gold did in 1978. Multiply prices by 10 and you will see an uncanny similarity to what is happening now. If it follows a similar path, expect the price to move to $2000, pullback to about $1750, up to $2200, back to $2000 then a spike out at about $2500 followed by a retracement to $2000. These are big moves which will take quite a bit of time to unfold.
Now this is silver in 1978. Notice the 15% rapid increase in early March followed by a full retracement shortly afterwards. This lines up with the gold pullback at the same time which I believe is what we should expect if gold goes to $2000 and pulls back below $1800. Here is the latest quick 15% rise which mirrors the movement in gold now and in 1978.
e WHAT I KNOW * invest in yourself first * don't spend any income in precious metals if it means delaying the investment in yourself: you must come first * (almost) nobody knows where the top will be, nor where the price changes will be. Just read and watch with caution. * lots of lessons about the character of a person can be found by viewing their old videos with their predictions and comparing it to reality * I used to think an ounce of gold for $1350 was ridiculous (and still do). I think $2700 AUD gold is super-ridiculous * what's more ridiculous: Printing money backed by nothing & handing it out to my buddies while the biggest corporations (my buddies) get taxpayer bail-outs and the middle classes get eviscerated (being told when they can work, wearing masks, taking ID when entering taxpayer-funded libraries, where we can travel, the total annihilation of our freedoms happening rapidly) * I feel dirty that the little gold and silver that I have is just doing nothing and I am basically having it sit there doing nothing productive, just like the bankers have done and are still doing. I have always felt this. Hoarding shit. There is just something very wrong here. Am I just a clone of those bastards and bitches? I am cloning what they have done for generations. The metals aren't being used in anything productive. I have been tempted to sell on many occasions, especially those cursed coins with the Queen's ugly face minted on one side. * I despise the whole concept of usury and all the misery if lives on. Are the rentier classes just clones of the central bankers? * how was my gold and silver mined? I don't know. I ought to. I know it came from the filthy terrorists we pay our taxes to, so anything goes * I think it's dumb that basically only gold and silver are thought of as 'monetary' metals. I think we are just clones of what the bankers have oppressed us with for generations. I'm all for competing (and copious) decentralised, private moneys WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY * Get out after 'the spirits' tell me it's time. Gut instict says we have much higher to go. Records will be smashed. * shower 3 times in hot water to purge me from sins of 'the banker's ways' * get as self-sufficient as possible and teach others to do the same. Everything else is feeding the beast
when I started stacking in the early 2000's I was buying slabbed ASE's for $7 lol This was on yahoo's auction site Sold. I bought my first one ounce bar for like $5. no one would even bother bidding against me as silver was so damn unpopular. its Likely not many people would even remember that auction website which was at the time Australia's version of ebay. I think I may have even won a few 99cent 1ounce auctions lol. China didnt even really bother faking silver bars then to the extent they do now as the value was shit on silver it wasnt worth the effort lol I was just looking on the yahoo auction site (pre Ebay Australia) days lol, Just one day i was searching sold and saw a bar of silver appear on the new listings section, I thought wow that is cool Im going to buy it, after all its only $5. I Forgot all about it and then it showed up in the mail, I was hooked and kept buying, and started buying bigger and bigger bars with my pay each week, after all it cost next to nothing. Older Friends used to ask why I bought it as its notorious for just crashing and people losing their arses on silver bullion, My reply was "I think maybe it will go up, maybe not who cares?". after all it was always under spot and I didnt think it would go down any more and plus I liked the bars and coins I was buying. come 2009 I stopped buying as prices started to rise,I thought likely I should play this one safe as this isnt normal and history said it doesnt usually stay high forever. it kept going up and people on auction sites which essentially became ebay where i used to buy things for next to nothing started paying huge money for them and well above spot. eventually I caved and sold up a majority of my stack. One guy bought around 1000 ounces off me in one wack, he rudely told me when collecting it that I was stupid for selling, that guy is likely still holding that silver and hasnt seen a cent of his investment. Where as the cash I got from my sales of a few thousand ounces helped me big time as a 20 something year old, it started me on a good road financially and was a spring board. The point is, Dont get FOMO and end up doing the stupid things. there are times to sell and times to buy. History is not on your side with Silver going to the moon and staying there, and yes Every pump over the years people say "its different this time" But it never is. you make money when you can and buy back in at the next opportunity. After the madness of 2011 there was a few years there where it again became just as unpopular once it became clear there was no more "To the Moon", and you could once again buy silver under spot. thats when I started buying the bulk of my stack again, when once again it became clear the price was now stable again. Thats my tactic with stacking and so strongly believe keeping an exit and buying strategy ready at the drop of a hat is the way togo in an effort to take advantage of both buying and selling periods. And if you do a major sell, take your profits and walk away for a bit, come back when things settle down, to avoid the temptation of buying back in even if it did rise a bit after you sold. and you remind your self that, after all you made money so you did what allot of those hanging around buying high, milking it likely wont end up doing. some people might think my personal experience is handy so I dont mind sharing it, others may ignore it.
In no particular order, rhyme or reason, here are a few of my thoughts looking back on the past 12 years I've spent owning metals. Don't have the majority of your assets tied up in precious metals. If you make lucrative enough gains to pay off your mortgage and own your home free and clear, it could open up all sorts of opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have. Do it. There are more lucrative opportunities for investment than buying inanimate metals, particularly if you can learn how to create value and leverage that through an online business. Every time I start planning in my mind about what I will do with the profits if the price doubles or triples from here (because the price action is getting me excited), take some profit off the table at that time. As a result, I did so this week (took profit on some gold miner positions I've held for up to 7 years). Sentiment indicators are through the roof in spot price and the miners (that said, I believe we are a long way from the bull market top if you can handle holding through a 1-6 month correction). Everyone is expecting imminent new highs in the USD price, which may come soon, but buying now (anticipating short term gain) is like picking up pennies in front of the steam roller. Don't expect the prices to reach levels quoted by permaspruikers like the ilk of commentator published on King World News. If you miss selling the peak, it will be difficult to let go on the other side as the price declines, be prepapred to wait a decade or three for the price to return to that level if you miss it. The cost of safe deposit boxes can get expensive over such a long period of time. Disbelief of a sustained higher spot price seems to show up in the gold miners first... if the gold miners are lagging as spot surges higher, that may be a warning sign of a pull back or end of the bull market. If you choose to own a core position in any metal, with no plan to sell, make it gold (less volatile and smaller volume to store high value).
No mania yet but 50% style retracement is not impossible. Most major gold miners are still far from ATH but some of the smaller silver miners have already reached 2011 levels.
I haven't been stacking for long enough to have much of an opinion on this. So far its been ups and downs all over the place but im happy to admit that Ive been on top of the game as far as I can tell. What im confused with is whether right now is a good time to be buying, do you subscribe to the idea that with the current state of the world all the "normies" will come flocking to PMs and send the price sky high, or whether this is just the sharp rise before the fall that will even out back to a stable bottom we are more accustomed to. I haven't seen this type of movement before and aren't equipped to guesstimate its probable outcome, does anyone have the authority to make such a call?
Thanks for sharing valuable 1st hand history. World since 2008 changed a lot more like 100% so history repeating itself is lot harder than many believe. More like claiming we will be in a nuclear war because it happened in the past.
i have been wandering, how long does it take to launch 5,000-6,000 nuclear war heads its not a war anymore 2-3 days/weeks imagine buying 5,000 fiddles
Thanks for a fascinating thread! As a ‘relatively new’ stacker compared to the veterans of the forum (I’ve only been stacking since May 2018), these are interesting times! While I didn’t buy at the absolute bottom of the cycle, I look back and see that the prices I bought into were certainly cheap, and these prices are the highest I’ve ever seen it while being in the space. So I’m now literally in profit on 100% of my stack, even the semi numismatics such as Kooks and Queens Beasts. My initial selling “everything” trigger point were if spot reached $35-$40 and $3500 respectively, but I’m starting to second guess that now honestly. Sentiment is so positive in the mid-long term, so the temptation to keep holding is high. I can see a short term retracement, then seeing it spike a lot higher. Debating whether to liquidate my semi-numi silver now and convert into bars or not. Before this run-up, I had theorized to myself that I would stop buying if spot breached $3000 and $30 respectively, and so far I’m holding true to that. I should point out too, when I got into stacking I bought into the theory of stock markets looking shaky, and as such the majority of my wealth (excluding super) is in PM’s. I know that’s not traditional or considered a good idea, but it’s held well so far. I’m only in my early 30’s, and was a typical millennial in my 20’s and blew all my money on crap and as a consequence I didn’t invest anything and as such have nothing to show for it. Precious metals are the first and only thing I’ve ever really put time and money into, and it’s been fantastic. Will obviously adjust those ratios when time is right, but apart from PM based stocks and some defensive sectors, I’m staying out of shares for now. Would love to hear anyone’s opinions or anecdotes!
Good point Mongrelmaple, it’s a very good idea indeed to set a maximum buy price that you decide to stop purchasing at during a sharp price run up.