All, I don't post a new thread very often because most of you are far more knowledgeable about silver, but have a question about the potential for silver. Over the past 8 months, I have enjoyed collecting silver as a hobby. This has increased my interest in collecting low premium stuff as an investment. However, my concern is this, can you make great money (i.e., retire early) money stacking silver? If you take out the SHTF stuff, I can't find any information about people making enough money to retire on silver. Real Estate yes, land yes, owning a business yes, investing in a business yes, stacking silver no. Are there any videos or articles you know of that articulate the path through silver (again not assuming hyperinflation or something out of the norm). Is stacking silver just a crazy notion to ever make real money? It doesn't pay a dividend, it doesn't generate rent, and perhaps I am just wishing it was possible to actually quicken a path to retirement. I'm thinking it might be best as an enjoyable hobby, and leave investing to stock, land, and rentals.
For small time stackers like us? No we can not retire and get rich on silver imo. If silver goes to the moon and you have significant stack (highly unlikely to hit $1000/oz) them maybe but i wouldnt count on it. To be honest, if it goes to $100/oz i would happily cash out.
I'm sure there's allot to pick apart about this article but maybe it will at least make you feel a little better reading it... http://seekingalpha.com/article/3018316-silver-poised-to-surge-on-big-american-buying
I think the only way to make money is to hold a job and earn money. Silver is where you may choose to park your excess money. If you wish to make money from silver, you need to treat it as a job, buying low and selling high. This involves the same risks as share, property currency trading and the like. Some people may buy a stock, property, bond or currency and just sit on it, as many of us do with silver, hoping in the long run it will appreciate. This philosophy has some risks as there can be a crash in these markets at any time, however, in the short to medium terms, I believe that stock, USD and property are set to crash whilst precious metals are due for an increase. This does not necelery mean that you will make money from silver, but that you will not lose from your investment in it, with at best picking up the lost compound interest you have foregone during the stacking process. If the foregoing holds true, at the end of the process, you will then need to choose how to take your profit in silver. Hold, sell, convert to gold, buy property, stocks or gold, sex drugs and rock n' roll? It's not unlike a belief in God. You need and end to prove the journey.
Real estate , land, business they all make money THROUGH WORK. Of course you can make plenty of money from silver. This does not mean stack and sit on your arse. Treat it like a business or rental, THEY BOTH TAKE WORK. Hunting around and buying cheap silver to on sell at a profit is easy . It does require time and effort JUST LIKE THE business and real estate mentioned , but yes you can make money. Easy peasy if you put as much effort into the silver as you would have to with a rental , of house flipping or a business. But stack and do NOTHING and the chances of hitting it rich are in the same realm as lotto
My view is that silver can give you a bit of pocket money but is more a vehicle to curb your spending cash. Of your spare money is in metals it is harder to spend. Of the spot price increases in the meantime then that is a bonus but hopefully it will at least go sideways and not drop in value. Doing the sums, if you had 1000oz and spot doubled them you won't be rich by any means but it is nice to have.
Demonstrably, no! Just go look at the 30 year price history graph: http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/ag85-pres.gif Even if you timed the market right and got in at say $5/oz, and were smart enough to sell at the brief peak of $40/oz that's only a maximum possible gain of 8 times. That might sound like a lot, but think about it. Even if you put $100k into silver, and you popped out with $800k at the end of it after 30 years, that ain't enough to retire on in today's market. It not even the average price of a house in Sydney. As a comparison You can make more than that on hundreds of stocks in much shorts terms if you are (just as) lucky. That's because no one has. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of crap. Bingo. Although hardly anyone on here will admit that reality.
So judging from that graph, why are we stacking then? Are we waiting for the next peak that may never happen? I keep tellng myself i do it as a hobby and because its fun but its not fun losing 25% of its value.
Apart from speculating about future value, no way. Even future value does not mean you could retire. Even the stuff went to $200 it doesn't mean shit if the cost of living has risen accordingly. At best, it's a way of storing value that one can hope will more or less track inflation overtime and a diversification from other asset classes such as cash, RE, stocks or bonds. But it isn't going to make you rich and retire early.
Dang, I was hoping this site knew something and it would be like buying apple or microsoft stock. Buying stock (businesses), and rentals are not necessarily much work at all. Our rentals are with a property management company and they do all of the work. In fact, we don't do anything anymore except get a check minus the 15% fee charged by the management company.
Thing is though, to make money in real estate you normally need at least the price of a small flat as an entry point, say $175k with ask the fees and taxes plus any improvements you made. If you made a 10-15 year investment in real estate on that scale in the year 2000, even if you did a lot of work yourself and bought in a place that experienced great growth and had tenents in the whole time you would be very lucky to triple your money for a return of $525k including your initial investment, especially with the upkeep and various council taxes. Oh, that's also if you got in the right place and out at the right time to avoid one of the biggest worldwide declines in the property market in living memory. $175k in silver over the same period yields closer to $1.6m. There are some associated fees and some premium but it's clear that if you got out while the getting is good (and some people must have otherwise the price wouldn't have dropped, obviously some people were selling) then you could have had an amount to retire on for the same investment stake as a small flat. You can't really say that you can retire on real estate but not silver if your not investing a similar amount, it's all about return on your dollar. However, you probably shouldn't be putting that sort of money in silver now. So silver isn't going to be the investment that let's you retire but it could be the investment that funds the investment that let's you retire. I've said again and again that we are all too focused on trying to predict the day silver goes to $50 or $100 and what that will look like when when we should all be at least as focused on what we're going to do with the cash the day after that day. When silver hit $45 in 2011 there were amazing bargains to be had in all sorts of investment classes. That's kind of the point of silver, it works for you when other things are crashing. If you had a good plan for what to do with your silver money in 2011 you could turn a hobby into a nest egg. Maybe it's tech stocks that are down because of general market melaise, maybe it's real estate while people can't pay their morgatages or finding a good investment bank that you think can weather the storm. Not knowing what $75 silver day will look like you should probably have a few ideas but there will be opportunities, it's almost guarunteed, risk too, but certainly opportunities. So, silver as a hobby on its own won't buy you 45 years on your own island but it could be the first and most important stepping stone.
Thanks for the great feedback. The one clarification Phrenzy 175k to 1.6 million would require about $144 spot price on silver, correct? Also, I agree real estate can be very risky, and its actually something I don't like to be involved with. Based on the feedback, I think I'll just stick to silver as a hobby. Part of the reason for my question is I have been so careful selecting poured bars and such that I have very little that I would want to sell (even if spot were over $40). This made me think I should save up and buy a monster box or something so I could actually sell someday.
One needs to keep in mind that for any & all asset classes, somebody can make a lot of money -- or get their ass handed to them. Oftentimes one only hears about the success stories, but not the countless failures. And even with those success stories, sometimes all the final numbers/costs aren't always honestly accounted for.. And in reality, the return is much less. Also, any & all asset classes have their own unique pros & cons. Can you think of at least one advantage with precious metals, which would boost the total return, and which many of the others don't possess? Hint: There is more than one. Finally, make sure you diversify some. And not only across various assets, but also within the precious metals arena.
The Stacker Police are pretty laissez faire about your rationale for stacking - I like the idea that you could use it as a means of mopping up money otherwise spent on cigarettes or booze or whatever, but other people are waaaay more highly geared. Buy what you like, buy bargains, buy the occasional speculative flutter; always buy what you can afford, and forget about planning for a spike, but have some idea of what you would sell if a spike happens. Look at the rise and fall* of fashionable bits of Silver - Redbacks, Dragons, even Burning Maples to demonstrate that fashion is still a major driver. Oh - and keep track of it all, especially what it cost.
at the moment yeah that's about right but that's the 2004-2011 scale of price increase (more actually). If you then used that money to buy property in 2011 or US bio tech stocks then you'd be sitting pretty right now. I think silver is a great investment, but you have to be careful, it's very easy to buy the wrong stuff and waste a lot of your money which means the price has to go up that much more before you start to make money. I don't think your only two options are hobby or retirement long shot. I'm sure there's a happy medium in there somewhere.
After looking in the crystal ball she says "You will be healthy for the rest of your life, your wife won't get fat or bitchy, and your stack is headed for the moon..." - A Happy Medium...
I don't think you should lose sight of the simplicity of silver. There is property, shares, bonds etc, but you need to pay some big money, and there are always fees. Silver however is accumulative. You can buy one ounce off a stacker or from a LCS for $25 today. That's it, you've got one extra ounce, you cannot do that with most other investments.
so is everything else you mentioned silver has "fees" as well in the cost of the premium on the physical. buying silver atm is a waste of money. THere are far better investments to put your money in currently silver is not going anywhere espically if the USA starts raising interest rates.
