Size matters - What's your idea of a decent stack?

[Jim4silver]

Ideal stack would be one big enough so that if/when silver hits $100 someday I can sell 3/4 of it and retire. Keep the other 1/4 which would be the cooler stuff for the heirs.

I don't think I will ever gain that much silver though unless it goes to $5 an ounce first and there is available metal with no premiums. Would be nice to buy a monster box of ASE's for $2500. LOL

Jim

 

[Abossy]

My plan is to hold on to my stack for as long as it takes as a safeguard against economic disaster however if spot price goes to double what I paid I intend to weigh in half so the half I have left is effectively 'free' and this way I won't need to worry if it goes up or down. I will not be listening to the financial experts or silver pumpers if I see double what I paid half gets sold no matter what.
This means I need to hold enough silver that if I do weigh in half I still have a meaningful amount left, I am by no means well off so I have set my desired stack target at 600 oz of silver and 20 oz of gold. I feel if I ended up with 300 oz of silver or 10 oz of gold that is still enough to do some damage with if the prices ever do go through the roof.

Holding as little as a few ounces and your ahead of most people so it's a sound plan.

For me it's never been about trying to get rich - with the price dropping so much I would have sold out a while ago. Primarily the reason I set such a high goal was I wanted a liquid asset so I am forced to hold less cash. People can argue and get all caught up in the crap that comes with this type of investment, but the bottom line is it's sensible to hold a chunk of your net worth outside the banking system - this is especially true given the economic environment we are currently in.

I believe the AUD is likely to be devalued over the coming years - hopefully PM's will do what their supposed to.

 

[hamannmj]

My plan is to hold on to my stack for as long as it takes as a safeguard against economic disaster however if spot price goes to double what I paid I intend to weigh in half so the half I have left is effectively 'free' and this way I won't need to worry if it goes up or down. I will not be listening to the financial experts or silver pumpers if I see double what I paid half gets sold no matter what.
This means I need to hold enough silver that if I do weigh in half I still have a meaningful amount left, I am by no means well off so I have set my desired stack target at 600 oz of silver and 20 oz of gold. I feel if I ended up with 300 oz of silver or 10 oz of gold that is still enough to do some damage with if the prices ever do go through the roof.

That's what people were doing in 1980...and, have found themselves down 66% after 35 years.

For me, personally, 300 ounces of silver would only see an increase of $10,650 IF Silver reached $50 (at today's prices) Not really enough to get excited about. Personally, ~1500 ounces of it is enough to sustain for a year, if SHTF.

I don't know...I'm seeing Silver as a horrible long-term play...and depending on when you purchase, you'd lose money in the long-term. Imagine, if you purchased silver at $40 an ounce just a few years ago...and, with inflation, in 20 years it hits $65 an ounce (unlikely). Well, you definitely lost money. I'd rather invest in fresh water plants in California...

 

[Rod Panhard]

My worry is that silver stackers have been played for years, all the internet doom mongers and pumpers with their 'silver is going to the moon' routine is getting tedious. I consider myself lucky that I am a new stacker and I never got in when it was $50 an oz. Anyone who bought in at this needs spot to treble at least before they can even break even. I'm considering 300 oz as an amount that's large enough that I can profit with if it rockets as well as being an amount not too large and dominated too much of my income that I won't feel like a total chump if it never sees a meaningful rise in whats left of my lifetime, plus as I said I'm by no means a big earner who can devote ridiculously large amounts to PM's.

I would actually be really happy if I made a couple of thousand on it, certainly better than the 0.5 - 2% I would get if it was in the bank.

 

[Rod Panhard]

Ideal stack would be one big enough so that if/when silver hits $100 someday I can sell 3/4 of it and retire. Keep the other 1/4 which would be the cooler stuff for the heirs.

I don't think I will ever gain that much silver though unless it goes to $5 an ounce first and there is available metal with no premiums. Would be nice to buy a monster box of ASE's for $2500. LOL

Jim

Being in the UK something I have never understood is why the ASE is the coin of choice and not the Canadian Maple, you mention the danger of silver going to $5 an oz so if we are preppers surely a coin with a face value of $5 rather than one with a face value of $1 makes more sense to hold so you are guaranteeing it will always be worth at least $5, what am I missing.

 

[The Crow]

My plan is to hold on to my stack for as long as it takes as a safeguard against economic disaster however if spot price goes to double what I paid I intend to weigh in half so the half I have left is effectively 'free' and this way I won't need to worry if it goes up or down. I will not be listening to the financial experts or silver pumpers if I see double what I paid half gets sold no matter what.
This means I need to hold enough silver that if I do weigh in half I still have a meaningful amount left, I am by no means well off so I have set my desired stack target at 600 oz of silver and 20 oz of gold. I feel if I ended up with 300 oz of silver or 10 oz of gold that is still enough to do some damage with if the prices ever do go through the roof.

That's what people were doing in 1980...and, have found themselves down 66% after 35 years.

For me, personally, 300 ounces of silver would only see an increase of $10,650 IF Silver reached $50 (at today's prices) Not really enough to get excited about. Personally, ~1500 ounces of it is enough to sustain for a year, if SHTF.

I don't know...I'm seeing Silver as a horrible long-term play...and depending on when you purchase, you'd lose money in the long-term. Imagine, if you purchased silver at $40 an ounce just a few years ago...and, with inflation, in 20 years it hits $65 an ounce (unlikely). Well, you definitely lost money. I'd rather invest in fresh water plants in California...

I think it is interesting how so many people focus on the highs and lows, and not on basic strategies.
If I had put all of my possible funds into gold at the beginning of December I'd have made my years wages in the last 6 months. But I could say the same thing about taking said funds to the roulette table as well - as long as I was lucky. And only placed my bets after the ball stopped rolling.
There are lots of far better investments than PMs. But only if you're smart and your timing is right. Or if you're just lucky. Or ......
But just as there are lots of strategies for investing, there are lots of reasons people play in PMs. There's the day-traders, there's the SHTF and survivalists, there's the "oh gee, that's pretty" .... etc.
For me, I'm a collector by nature and have a stamp collection that's cost me a shitload. Will probably never see a cent of that back. I am enjoying the PMs: they are pretty and worth collecting, or they are old and junky and I can have so many of them I can play Scrooge McDuck if I want. I can sit on it and hopefully never have to worry about buying a loaf of bread. I don't car about cars and houses and stuff - no need to preserve that amount of wealth against a collapse of the financial system - I just never want to have to starve because cash became worthless and I didn't do something to try to hold at least a little value.
And unlike the stamps, I could sell everything tomorrow and get most of what I paid back, because I didn't panic buy as the price went up and hopefully can avoid a fire sale if the price bottoms out.

 

[hamannmj]

^^ agree with most of what you said; however you can't eat silver. But,at least you can live in a house, so I certainly care about real estate. I find silver to be a risk, that sometimes pays off,...but that many times people wait 20+ years only to see their "hedge" worth even less than their original value.

 

[The Crow]

I found that investing in beer provided an excellent rate of return: certainly seems like 6 schooners in 6 litres out

 

[hamannmj]

Lol

 

[TODDY TATTS]

Hahaha

 

[HudsonDesign]

Up or down aside. $10 or $100 an ounce.

The hypothetical concept of retiring early say...

My thoughts are silver and gold, purchased over time (and for me most all of it below $20) in smaller amounts, were never really purchased at all. No point stuffing the mattress with fiat thats likely worth less later, let alone worthless.

I think about the only people that did any good stuffing "money" under the bed were all the old ladies "stacking" florins and sixpences....

So it'll be great if PM skyrocket, I'll do what others suggested and drop half so my other half is technically free, but if it drops again, I'd just start to reload.

Then really, as years go by, I'll just "cash in" as I need some, and if it ever does skyrocket, I'm still in same position.

 

[phrenzy]

Here's an answer with pictures. This is a 5 bu hansatsu note from Japan, next to it is 5 bu in ingot coins. Collectible value of the items aside, one of them is worth some infinitesimal fraction of a cent in paper, the other group of coins is a couple grams in gold and a little under half an ounce of silver, that is ti say much more than a fraction of a cent. In edo japan they had the same value, someone would gladly trade you one for the other. Today? Not so much.

My stack will be big enough when there's no more paper to turn into metal while the going is good. I'm not going to only own metal, there needs to be diversity, hough quality shares, real estate when the market corrects etc., but if I'm holding fiat then it means my stack needs to be bigger.