In a market there's a bid price and an ask price. Spot is the figure in the middle and is generally quoted as "the price". But Perth Mint quotes a spot that differs from Kitco's, which differs from SuisseGold's, which differs from the figure shown on the forum, which differs from GoldLive. And I could go on. I generally watch the Kitco (using their Kcast widget) and use Perth Mint's because thats where I generally buy bars. But right now, for silver, the forum charts show AUD30.18, Kitco shows AUD 29.78, Perth Mint is AUD31 even and GoldLive is showing AUD29.84. And gold is worse! Where does Spot live??? How do you Stackers resolve this annoying difference or do you just not bother?
http://www.funwithspot.com/ To me, all that matters is the retail price when it comes to buying. Otherwise I look at goldprice.org and the charts here for daily price changes. But really it's the retail price of the items I am interested in or have bought that is the real thing to me.
Me? I just don't bother. It doesn't make any sense, I just go for the cheapest price I can get it for. Only chart I look at is at the top of this page. At the moment though, I shan't be buying anything for a bit.... Almost stocked up last week and thought I'd missed another low, but.... Whoda thunk silver would be back in the 20's? Holy McShite! No point thinking too hard about it.
There is disparity between the prices though, and the price you pay is made with reference to each of those prices. If there was a greater disparity between the prices which one would we follow? The lowest price for buying, of course and absolutely passionately convince the buyer the most expensive quote is the most accurate when selling. *giggles*.
Spot price on the physical bullion purchase I believe is the correct spot price as the old saying goes "if you can't hold it then you don't own it".
So right! and I love holding it!! (Talking about bullion, guys! Keep it clean. Family show here Mind you, I kept picking up and rubbing a kg bar from Perth Mint while I was thinking and pretending to work the other day. Something about the feel just feels good. Anyway, back to topic.) Perth Mint has its bid and ask prices ("spots") and then its actual buy and sell prices (which are set somewhere between AUD35 and AUD50 either side). Since this is where I get most of my bar bullion, this then must be "spot" for me. I buy at their sell price but calculate current value for the metal in my stack records at their "bid" price, which is higher than their actual buy price but still a conservative figure for my purposes. Since I don't buy physical from Kitco or GoldLive or the others, I suppose that makes them spot for paper silver as far as I'm concerned. But do they purport to be tracking spot for physical? If they don't should we (ie the forum) be using them to reflect pricing, since we all stack physical as our first preference?
