Jeff Christian mentions his discussion on this forum in Silver Investment Demand: A comprehensive study of the global silver investment market for the Silver Institute. "A third story helps further clarify and expand the subject. In late 2013 I became engaged in a discussion on a chat-room entitled silverstackers.com. Over a period of several days we had a very lively and interesting discussion of silver market trends and conditions. At one point one participant made a comment that hit home and stuck with me. I had written something about investing in silver, and the respondent said, in essence, 'with due respect Mr. Christian, you need to know that we do not invest in silver, we stack it.' He meant that they did not see silver as an investment, but as a store of wealth, an alternative to holding one's wealth in a nationally issued currency such as the U.S. dollar. That comment contains profound wisdom, even as it also misses a key point. ... These nuances aside, the silver stacker's comment was very profound and telling of the role of silver investing. Many investors buy and hold silver not as an investment in any short-term or speculative sense of the word, but as a core part of their long-term assets, the base in some cases of the individual's wealth." Download the whole report here http://www.cpmgroup.com/sites/default/files/file_upload/CPM Group Silver Investment Demand 2014.pdf
What was going on in that thread? It was before I got into stacking. What I got out of it was: a) One guy (Andrew Maguire) claims there is extensive manipulation in the gold and silver markets, and says he is "exposing the imminent default of the LBMA unallocated bullion banking system", an orchestrated price smash, "absolutely no gold left", "two to three days before this has a massive rebound effect", etc (April, 2013) b) Another guy, Jeff Christian, disputed Andrew's credentials and background experience. Jeff also states that there is no market manipulation, implying Andrew is full of shit. c) Double-up conspiracy theory, Andrew is a plant put there to discredit King World News, Max Keiser, etc. d) People in the thread attack Jeff for claiming no manipulation. e) Stop it with the stupid conspiracy theories. f) Jeff's forum supporters join in. g) Misc comments h) Jeff shows up to commenting his position. i) More disparaging comments are made about Jeff. j) Sammy makes a comment that, a year and half later, results in today's thread. k) rabble rabble rabble, more of the same So, here we are, 18 months later. No LBMA collapse, no sign of market manipulation, prices never went to the moon, no metals shortage and basically nothing much really happened at all. So Jeff was right all along?
Ok, so what was the end result? Where did these guys stand after the dust had settled? I guess its all ancient history by now.
Christian is still getting his checks from Goldman Sachs; and we're still here waiting for the music to stop.
Important point left out by OP "Many people confuse investing with trading these days. Investing is not limited to shorter term buying, hold- ing, and later selling assets. That is one form of inves ting, but the concept of investing is much broader and bigger, much more significant than merely such short-te rm transactions. Indeed, by most definitions and cer- tainly in my mind, investing is much more a buying an d holding activity, stacking silver if you wish, than it is the shorter term activities." That is the more important position that other stackers on this forum have posited. Buying physical pm's to hold long term is an investment - stacking is investing. .
Investing is giving a company your money in the hope that it will do the job better and or bigger, as to pay back your money and an extra as thanks/risk reward. Buying silver is just buying a dead asset. Assets don't do jobs. If they deliver more back, then it's simply due to a sucker that gets delivered less back. Just like with fiat, only that you're sure of something that has a higher production cost due to more work involved in making it than in fiat. Stacking silver / buying whatever asset is not investing, and those that see it that way, aren't after producing more, but after anothers property. Something to take into account when buying from them, or selling to them. Their investment 'return' implies your loss.
Just saw this Fred. It looks like I'm famous in my own lunchtime. I expect Eric King will be wanting me on KWN. Keep calm and continue stacking
KWN prefers authors who are "legends" so now you are more than qualified to be featured. What will your article be titled? I fully expect an awesome double entendre slipped into the title. But note that, regardless of content, KWN articles must have at least one of the following in the title: Chaos, Collapse, Shocking, Stunning, Horrifying, Frightening, Terrifying, Turmoil, Massive, Madness, Meltdown, Panic, Explosion, Smash, or Unprecedented. Double bonus if you can fit "Gold" in there somewhere too.
Last night I bedded a new lady, it was Chaos, Collapse, Shocking, Stunning, Horrifying, Frightening, Terrifying, Turmoil, Massive, Madness, Meltdown, Panic, Explosion, Smash, and Unprecedented. Truly a golden moment.
