If the price reversal isn't sustained, who will be disillusioned?

After months and months of watching a slow grind down in precious metal prices, I have a feeling people are pinning their hopes on last week's reversal and see the upturn as the early beginnings of a new bull market for gold and silver.

But what if the upward trend isn't sustained? Anyone here want to admit to being disappointed?

More broadly, will there be serious disillusionment leading to an exodus of stackers as they abandon gold and silver?

Personally, I have some cognitive dissonance because I get simultaneously excited and disappointed no matter which way the price goes. I get excited when prices drop because I anticipate buying a truckload of silver, and also excited when prices rise because I already have some silver. But then am disappointed for the same reasons - rising prices, no truckload of silver for me, falling prices, my silver is worth less in fiat.

(Note: If prices continue to move upwards I don't want to be labelled an unbeliever, so hallelujah brothers, our rightful time has come and wrath will be visited upon the equity market speculators and printers of fiat. )

 

If it doesn't happen now the reversal will happen some time in the next 12-24 months. After that I'll be mildly disillusioned.

 

SilverPete, you need to embrace the disconnect between silver and fiat. You stack silver for silver's sake, not for the fiat. Should there ever be a financial collapse, what silver is worth in fiat will be meaningless. I just stack. Keep enough fiat to pay the ills and have some reserve, but just stack.

 

A few bucks here or their really doesnt bother me either way, Im waiting for the 1/14 GSR I think that is best way to measure it.

 

I wait with bated breath.

 

Yes well I'm emotionally exhausted by 3 years and many miscalls of my own. I was just starting to feel the dungeon's door had cracked open when Gold got traction above 1180 and the USD seemed to be peeling back. Now I'm back to gloom again on this subject because there seems a strong chance the USD will start up again. I want to be delivered from this godawful investment called precious metals.

 

My metals purchase is with "spare" change so yeah could have done better like putting it on the mortgage but I'm not too concerned with this drop. Its still there for me to sell for less than i bought it for but I can still get it if I wanted.

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86xFeK2h_bU[/youtube]

 

Much better than waiting with baited breath.

 

I compare my stack with an insurance policy, with the difference that all the money I send to my insurers seems to be gone forever, whereas my stack is worth less than five years ago, but not worthless.

I have a different (and smaller) pot for 'hunch gambling' - which got seriously hammered the last time I bet that Gold and Silver was goin' to da moon because of fundamentals. I believe that manipulation is rife, but at certain extremes the manipulators cannot stop the flood. Sure, they will make obscene amounts of money, but that does not mean a stack is worthless, only that trading is dangerous.

As of right now, savers are being punished, the lazy are rewarded, the market is addicted to printed money, countries are running on debt with no hope of repayment and it's earthquake weather - the fiscal faults might slip tomorrow, next week, next decade. It might be because of war, trade, resource depletion, or a flock of black swans. I'll buy when value appears good, and sell either to tidy up, or because an asset has suddenly become fashionable - unless I get it wrong and are forced to.

 

Thanks hyphenated, I share your sentiments. Savers are going to be subject to additional pain if bailouts, levies and taxation measures are introduced so that highly leveraged speculators can avoid bearing the cost of their behaviour.

We may even get a "freedom levy" or somesuch to pay for our government's distractionary military and security theatre.

 

The only ones who wouldn't be are the newbies or the ones with a small tack so I'll put my hand up for that. It's more the opportunity cost that I've missed out on that disappoints me most. Tallied it up since I started stacking and it's quite significant. Now I just buy with whatever spare change I would have wasted elsewhere and forget about it.

 

Me too.
I could try and convince myself that because of some BS insurance plan I imagine I have, that I am still not wrong, but I'd only be kidding myself.
While I have managed to short any losses away, it doesn't compensate for opportunity cost. Also, it shouldn't be this much work. To me, this much effort to stay afloat is the obvious tell-tale that metals have been quite a shitty strategy.

 

I do not really consider the opportunity costs as being lost. It's not as if there were loads of opportunities lying around that I would have spent the money on if I hadn't put the money into silver.

I am not a fan of shares.

I already Salary Sacrifice my Superfund to the limit.

In the bank the money would have at least kept up with inflation, if I could keep it in the bank that is, more likely I would have had new steps put on the house or had the side concreted and a cover put over the BBQ, none of which we need.

I have paid down all my personal debt, I no longer have a mortgage to pay down, the mortgage on the investment property is apparently "good debt" so apparently paying that is not a great idea.

We would probably go on holiday abroad instead of going on holiday in Australia if the money was available, but one beach is pretty much the same as any other to me.

We would like a new car, but we don't need one and if the cash was sitting in the bank account it is something we might look into.

The money would have been spent if it wasn't locked into precious metals so I count that as an oppourtunity saving for the future.

I have managed to be happy when silver goes up and goes down, I get more excited when it goes up but I stop buying, when it goes down I don't get as excited but I do add a few more ounces, not filling up with large bars but picking up a couple of items I wouldn't normally buy at the higher prices, just added about 20 Mexican Pesos, not something I would normally stack but the money that would have gone to a couple of larger bars is instead going to something a bit more interesting.

 

I respect your intelligence Jis.
That is why I don't believe you.
With all due respect, you have just listed other stuff you could have had if you hadn't flushed the cash on silver, and at the same time convinced yourself there was no other opportunity, and this loss is a 'future saving'.
I know you are smarter than that.

 

You over estimate my intelligence

My wife likes new cars at $40k a pop, my last car was a 20 yr old MX5 which I spent most weekends tinkering underneath. She also likes to change them every three years.

My wife also likes foreign holidays, I am from the UK, living in Australia is one long foreign holiday to me, the weather is perfect and the beaches are great, I can't go in the water for fear of being stung/eaten but I am from the UK so I can't swim anyway. I am just as happy sitting in the garden with a pile of books.

My wife likes paying people to do the house up, new bathroom and kitchens, new front steps, concreting the front of the house etc. it isn't even our house it belongs to the inlaws and will get split 50:50 with her brother. I did pay for the water tank and the solar panels and solar hot water though so I am part to blame

She also hates being in debt and the last investment property we had she paid off $200k even though from a tax point of view it was more beneficial to keep the loan high or at least keep it in an offset account.

I do like going on eBay and buying crap but it is getting it back into the house that is the hard part, so most of the time I don't bother.

So the silver joins the Magic the Gathering 'investments', the Star Wars figures still in their packets "investments", the coin collections"investments", the stamp collections and the trade card collections and the collection of cereal toys from Kelloggs Frosties from 1984 to 1992, which will one day be worth an absolute fortune!

The idea being that all these investments will increase in value over the years and will be sold when it comes to retirement and I can build my dream home...but I really need people to start seriously collecting cereal toys.

Most of the other investments have been put on hold, though the spot price of MacDonalds and Cereal Promos is definetly signalling a 'buy', I still add to the silver and the Magic the Gathering sealed booster collections but I have enough spare cash to do both. If I ran short of cash I would probably divert fom the silver to the Magic cards because they bring out 3 sets a year in about 11 different languages and if you fall behind it can be difficult to catch up.

Sadly my investments are not the usual stocks and shares and things where the opporunities are generally recognised by my family (who for some reason have a say in how I spend the money). I would be interested into moving into Lego sets as an investment and I guess that is probably the only lost opportunity but it isn't really about the cost, it is about the storage and getting it past the family.

But I take your point, it is money that I could have spent in another investment vehicle which could have performed better, but who knew people would be sick of MacDonald's Ty Beanie Babies?!

 

^^^

Hahaha, when will the scales fall from their eyes?

 

I know! These are still mint in sealed packages and mostly complete sets, in all the colour variations!

Or do you mean the scales falling from my eyes as you do not believe they will ever be worth a fortune, in which case you can join my wife and family and everyone else on eBay...

 

I'm just disillusioned by the obvious manipulation that's going on here.

 

looks like some people get fixed at lower prices there, when they exit.
some get it for higher prices, by design when they jump in.