I've mentioned this fellow before: Simon at sovereignman.com Today he has a great column on when to recognise the top in gold. He says the vending machines in suburbia now being installed and safety deposit vacancy rates. An interesting read and I hadn't thought of the most obvious indicator - 'we buy gold' signs. I've seen them springing up around - newly painted on cash converters along with 'pay day loans'. ( a frightener in itself) Perhap 'we buy silver' signs will start appearing sometime in 2011! http://www.sovereignman.com/
Gotta say there's "we buy gold" signs everywhere in the US. They're starting to mention silver as well. For shits and giggles I went into a gold buying shop in Maryland yesterday in a shopping mall - this wasn't an Australian style kiosk, but a full normal retail store that was fitted out with just a couple of couches, posters on the wall of some bling, and a desk up the back. Burly looking guy at the desk, and a pretty young thing who bounded to the front of the store to greet me. I asked if they sold gold - they only bought it. So I said "well I've got some 1 ounce American Gold Eagles at home I inherited - how much will you pay?". The first question from the guy was "what purity?". Sigh. Basically they refuse to give a price unless there's gold on the table in front of them, and he started explaining if he gave me a price, and I brought the coins in "and they were only 18 karat" it would cause problems etc. Basically they had no idea about buying coins or bullion, and were scrap merchants. The fact that they had such a large retail space fitted out though was a bit disconcerting - that's a high overhead to be recouping from the margin on their scrap business. Saw lots of signs for gold buying, NONE for gold selling. America's (and Australia's) jewellery boxes are being stripmined. Extraction cost per oz is bugger-all
I just don't understand why jewelers aren't buying these peices for scrap. They already have the recognised businesses.
That's fascinating and I think the best indicator I've seen yet for a coming storm. Even more so than the gold queues in China. I'd think that mall rents would be fairly low btw.
So how much would you give me for this gold necklace if I sold it back to you, - would put a dampener on the salespitch
There is a jewelry/gold shop near my office. The guy has a banner on the street advertising that he buys gold. The same distance in the opposite direction is a van parked facing the same street and the van has we buy gold on its sides. The owner of the jewelry shop will not sell me any gold or silver. He only buys.
