Ausecon said:
As i was reading i thought you might've been trying to include the word speculative or a derivative in every paragraph!
Yeah, sorry about that. It was both fascinating and frustrating to watch it all unfold on release day. The smart money knew the flip was on and some people had no problems doubling and even trippling down close to release as people who got caught up in the frenzy starting paying silly sums for what's really just a bog standard bullion coin, but with 'limited' mintage.
I stayed away from the circus, but it was interesting to see some aggressive attitudes come out here as questions on asking price that was obviously a gouging effort came to the fore.
We ripped straight into those scum dealers with massive release markups, only to do the same thing here and then got pretty shirty when the questions were asked. I was pretty 'wow, hypocritical much?' over the whole thing, but that's how it panned out.
But it was also interesting to see the nature of the speculative market play it's hand on supply and demand too, especially on SS where you'd have to say the average mindset of the community members are (generally) a cut above the sheeple.
The Dragon release distinctly said to me that even with the learned stacker ideology in place, when the speculative market beckons even the most jaded will potentially be willing to roll the dice.
Some people on SS (as evidenced by the reports above) did very well on buying at issue price, flipping for really no effort at all and cash in on the speculative market.
What do you all honestly think the flippers did with their extra cash windfall from the proceedings?
Why, buy MORE OUNCES of course! THEY were the smart ones!
The only question I have for the buyers of $100+ oz silver now, are you sure you really made a good decision once the dust has settled?
Personally, if I was buying at over $100 per Oz, I'd feel like a right frakking idiot about now. I couldn't fathom how you'd place conviction in collectable premium appreciation over simple spot movement over the long term, but that's just the pure 'stacker' in me thinking. I KNOW many folks will point to the 2000 market for Dragons as proof of concept, but you have to realise that even those highly sought after premium coins go for not really that much over what was just paid for the 2012 version of the coin.
You'd have to see pretty big price appreciation on the speccie market for the 2012 to realise the sort of profit you'd hope for - and then hope that this margin is better than if you'd just bought more ounces, been patient and let spot realise your profits instead. Huge risk IMHO.
I reckon if you buy your lunars *at issue price* or even just a shade above, you've gotten the best possible outcome as there's always going to be fools willing to roll the speccie dice.
All my lunars that I've bought were at issue price, but I didn't buy dragons at all and there's no way in hell I'd be paying the asking prices for dragons that are expected in the current 2nd market either.
If you already have your core position in silver / gold and are satisfied with taking a punt, good luck to ya. But if you're still building your core position (and let's face it, most of us are) you'll have to forgive me in saying you made a poor choice in buying $100 silver when you simply could have gone for more ounces.
But it's said and done now and whilst silver has flattened out somewhat in recent months the frenzy has died a bit, the market is relatively stable right now until Silver moves again. I've absolutely no doubt once silver breaks the magic $50 psychological barrier well get another raft of stacker newbies looking to cash in and you can flip all those dragons to the next sucker in line instead.
Whilst I'll probably pick up a few of the non-1oz denominations in Dragons just for variety whilst they're on issue, there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'll touch the 1oz market.
Silver is silver is silver at the end of the day and whilst I don't mind a little premium stuff for the kitty, the dragon thing was just too crazy for this old war horse to make real sense of.
Just pass me those 'junk' 1966 50c coins and pre-decimal fractionals, plus simple bullion bars thanks. That'll do me.