Going through the last peak, it actually wasn't very easy because everyone seemed drunk on profits and 'new paradigms'. In retrospect, this was the signal. I think it was difficult to pick the peak last time because people expected the bubble to form at a much higher price and become way more mainstream (like property investing) which would have been a louder signal.
I am kinda new myself and I'm also stacking to save. I went big on my first 2 purchases near february. 2x1kg bars, then a 500g bar later. I went in for 20 x 1/10oz buttons and 6 x 1/2oz buttons yesterday from Yeager Poured Silver. I think it will still go up in the long term but might not hold the current level in the short term *shrug*
Now I am suffering the pain of $1.5 drop................Sold at 24.6 and bought back at $27.6 (Damn!!!)
Yeah I watch bitcoin and gold, they are usually the canary in the coal mine. If silver does something on its' own and noone is talking about the reason why - it's probably not going to last
It's quite simple. Do you see other prices rising? If not, then a rising silver price is a rising profit. Profit, tends to be taken.
You called it big boy I should add i very much enjoy your youtube channel. You have one of the few Aussie accents that i can enjoy listening too. Not that there is anything inherently bad with Aussie accents, it is just easy to get put off them after having a women moan at you for a couple of years with that twang. I used to not even notice an Aussie accent until HER..........................
There's are other ways to save and profit too. The main issue I had with putting most my savings in bullion was having to find a buyer to pay the same premium I paid, so regardless of the spot price there's was still that premium that made my silver worth less. anyway another form of saving is in food. I still have lots of jars of honey I bought before the honey shortage, 500g coles brand $3.29 Now coles no longer sell their brand of honey and 500g is around $6 so not only do I have a healthy supply but I almost doubled my investment. That probably won't happen with most food items but even over a 6 month period, if you buy everything when it's on special, like 30%, 50% off, by the time you use it it could be 10% more. So that's just another idea, if you enjoy spending money and find it hard to save then setting up a pantry might be another option in between buying some silver. I did a video a year ago on my other channel of the start of my savings pantry, it's been put up here a couple times but here it is again.. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbNYPyDLOA0[/youtube]
Anything in a can will last years. A lot of those foods are not great for you but if you look into it, many of them are fine. Pickled foods are also fairly long life. If you work them into your lifestyle (using plenty of beans, lentils, rice etc) as a means of rotating through the stuff you have to keep the stored items in date then it is an incremental investment which is basically an insurance policy. I started with this after some serious storms where we were entirely unprepared left us with nearly nothing in the house, no power and no decent means of cooking. I think 'prepping' has become a dirty word hijacked by people who think the world will end this year and they have to defend themselves against thieves etc. I think it just makes sense to have a store of food for short-term emergencies (canned, pickled, dried, etc), and if you can afford the initial out-lay a slightly longer term food supply (freeze dried or dehydrated) for slightly larger situations be they environmental, you lose your job, something happens and you're not covered by insurance... All that kind of stuff.
Yeah it's all about stock rotation. so for items that have say a 12 month use by date, I don't have more then i would use in 12 months if they are all the same date. 6 months later I will have half left so it's time to re-stock another 6 months worth and so on. Freezer is a very good part of the pantry, can buy bulk meat and freeze bulk fruit & veggie's when cheap and in season. also can make meals in bulk and freeze portions ready to heat & eat.
Personally, I'd wait. Huge increase the past 6 months...around 50%. I'm waiting for it to drop below $15 USD, then i'll pick up a ~1,000 ounces again. I've done this several times, and as long as you're patient...and, don't need to sell your silver, it's hard to lose money on this stuff. Of course, it's very easy to LOSE money IF you need to SELL. It's important to note, that a lot of people here have bought when the price was $30+, or even $40+...and, they've been waiting for YEARS to recoup their money. There have been thousands upon thousands of things they could have invested in...during that time, that would have done better than (-) 50-70% Some people consider it a hedge against inflation, but it really depends on when you purchased Silver. Buying Silver is more of a crisis hedge...not an inflation hedge. Take Gold, for instance...had you bought in 1980, and waited 21 years...you would have lost 85%! Adjusted for inflation, Gold was around $2400 in 1980...and, then only $364 in 2001. For Silver, it's even worse...going from $107 in 1980...to around $5.00 in 2001. It's really about buying Silver on historical low prices, adjusted for inflation, and waiting for it to drop to a price that's reasonably low...considering a lot of factors. Can you get rich? Yes. Can you substitute purchasing Silver for Saving money in a common checking/saving account? Yes. Can you lose money, if you NEED to sell it in the next 3...5..10...20 years? Absolutely you can. It's really about owning something that COULD go up in price, V.S. owning something that COULD lose you 50...60...70%+. Again, it's a crisis hedge...not an inflation hedge.
If you own enough possessions or have enough money to feel comfortable (safety net) that daily/weekly/yearly sudden events in your life/lifestyle can sill be managed then I feel its ok to continue buying silver at any price within reason. It takes a bit more thought into how much you continue to buy and what type you buy when the price is higher than you are used too like in my case I started when spot was $19 au and was buying some premium silver then lower than todays spot price. I have even said on this forum that I wouldnt pay over $28au an ounce but I still have lol . What I would not do is buy silver if I was trying to control debt. although debt and credit can be easily used to your advantage when you are already above your financial safety net it is usually and more likely a burden on most peoples lifestyles,buying silver would not ease debt burden but just increase it and may cause those in debt to sell at lower than expected prices through periodic "necessity" causing debt based loss to add to that debt burden.. I drive a not so expensive car and I laugh when every week on the way home from work I see the discounted petrol stations turn into stressful carparks including many top end expensive cars queuing to save $4 or $5 on their weekly fuel spend? I buy petrol when I need it and it costs what it costs when I need it! I dont really need silver or a constant full tank of discounted petrol to save $5 even though my financial safety net may be much closer to the ground than some others.
Usually, when one purchases something at decades high prices, he never recovers. Even not after 20 years. Those that bought at the few $50 days in 1980, didn't break even in the 2011 equivalent days. Far from. That is not only true for silver, but for nearly every (financial) product purchased at such decades high price. In terms of purchasing power, there is never a recovery. One can only make better choices later on, with new purchases, to correct it. That's what I'm trying, although for me it will probably never reach break even. That's the mirror side of trading in a zero sum market. It's alot less talked about than the other side. It just makes clear that it's not the product that is an inflation hedge. It's not the metal or whatever that makes the hedge work, it's the one trading it. The key is to not sit down, have regrets, give up, but to continue as to correct it as much as possible, not necessarily gold or silver, and certainly not if their prices stays bloated. I eliminated some spendings, decreased others by shopping around as to find the least price/cost, buy whatever I can already now instead of doing it later, and hoard various bargain priced stuff that I think is liquid enough to sell later on, but limited to a % of my income, the rest is savings account bank, waiting to use for bigger and better (just trying!) choices. It's possible but not sure that a $15 or so is shortly to arrive. That will depend on whether or not the governments decide to trigger another crisis, which in turn depends on how "non State peoples" bank savings evolute. It happens enough that alot expect soon yet it doesn't arrive soon, and nobody expect soon, and it does. For the obvious reason: wrong decisions tend to be made due to being surprised / hurry. So if media tout around 5 gazillion "evaporated" on stock markets, keep cool and await the opportunities that then ARE soon.
^^ So many factors that are unknown when you're talking about "prices staying bloated," because, it's not just about historical prices...it's about the current state of affairs in precious metals and the continued printing of money. It's not easy to predict, but, yes...dollar cost averaging is important as well. For instance, if we all "knew" that the prices were bloated...we'd all avoid purchasing anything until they came back down. For all we know, some new technology would require silver...and silver could be $100 next year...and stay there forever. Or, it could be $5.00 an ounce again... My point, which I think you agree with, is that silver is hardly a hedge against inflation...that's been proven, over and over again, that's it not. But, it is...a hedge against a crisis.
IMO, if you are waiting for sub $15 silver again, you'll be waiting a very, very, very long time..... Silver Under 20 USD is a no brainer. Of course you could leave that cash in the bank and be part of a bank Bail-IN, or invest in the stock market, since it's at all time highs. PM Stocks are also STILL a good pick, sure most are already up over 100% ytd, but just look at their ten year charts and see what they did in 2009, AFTER the last downturn started. Silver at Today's prices is 3 things.... 1) An investment 2) A store of wealth 3) Insurance against currency collapse
oh, and btw, Silver certainly is a hedge against inflation when compared to other commodities. In 1918, a silver dime bought you 0.295 gallons of gas.....in 2011, it bought you 0.7313 gallons of gas. in 1979, a silver dime bought 1.79 gallons! Today, 2 silver dimes will buy you a gallon of gas WITH A DOLLAR LEFT OVER!...yep you can get OVER three times as much gas with a silver dime today than you could in 1918, but it doesn't protect against inflation? The value of a dollar bill has lost 95% since 1913 overall, but silver holds it's value against other commodities......HMMMMMMMM now what do you call that?
There is a risk attached to swapping to other things: they are a new learning job, and wrong decisions there deliver... another loss. Instead of a sell low, and risking just another buy high, in another of the thousands things, there is also the same thing, and better decisions in it.
1) What is that current state of affairs: 5 years far in the downwards part of a price cycle. 2) What is that printing of money: over last decade seen - nothing special. QE was not what it pretended to be, and caused 1). Some say: history repeats itself. Many factors, are known. Only that some don't bother to collect and dig through data, and instead rely on others that pretend as data source but added their vested interest bias to it.
Just thinking away the forward (due to futures market hedging) part in the cash price, already returns sub $15. One orders 20000 oz on the cash market and takes 4 long positions on the futures market, to lock in the cost of the 20000 oz. He doesn't want 40000 oz, just compensating dollars in case the price has increased by the time of the delivery and payment. But the spot price is driven up alike it is a 40000 oz. Then he receives and pays the 20000 oz. And lets the 4 long positions expire, or if he doesn't want to wait, he gives opposite orders as to reach a net exposure of zero. Look at the sales figures of silver the last decade. That silver doesn't perish / vaporize to dust. Imagine a squirrel in autumn. Collects acorns for 5 winters. Drives price +5. Doesn't need to collect the next 4 autumns. Drives price -5. Waiting!
