[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'H')ey, don't get me wrong, I don't have any skin in the game, I hope you guys make out like bandits. I said to sell out before now so what do I know?

Actually, I know you've already made out like bandits, except you aren't out of the bank. The problem is, the real bandits run the bank and will decide when the door closes.

People were feeling exactly like you when they owned:
dot.anything in 1999
Condos in '05
Oil in Q2 '08

I know, this time is different.

[gollum]

I've done well with the silver I have, but that was never my purpose any more than owning a house was to make dollars. I can sure see a 25 percent correction quite easy but in the longer term you can't print silver, and as trust in governments continues to decline I expect it to hold the relative value it had in 1914 when a dime bought a gallon of gas. The other day I was in a Subway sandwich shop in Montana, the sales girl was talking to a customer whom she clearly didn't know. She talked about how she and her husband were buying silver and he talked about dollars becoming worthless, point being while there is sure possibility for a correction down in silver but the upside is still quite stout as Joe public starts to see inflation and an inept government will be looking for some store of value for his extra cash.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gollum', 'I')'ve done well with the silver I have, but that was never my purpose any more than owning a house was to make dollars. I can sure see a 25 percent correction quite easy but in the longer term you can't print silver, and as trust in governments continues to decline I expect it to hold the relative value it had in 1914 when a dime bought a gallon of gas. The other day I was in a Subway sandwich shop in Montana, the sales girl was talking to a customer whom she clearly didn't know. She talked about how she and her husband were buying silver and he talked about dollars becoming worthless, point being while there is sure possibility for a correction down in silver but the upside is still quite stout as Joe public starts to see inflation and an inept government will be looking for some store of value for his extra cash.

[sjn]

Lore, the point with PMs is you hold them until you need to spend them. If you kept the money in the bank, you'd lose purchasing power to inflation and risk bank failure, higher interest financial products necessarily carry even greater risk. If there are material things you need to buy to survive predictable future scenarios and you have spare cash, it's probably a good idea to get them now while you can, but if you want to preserve purchasing power into the unknown PMs really are the only way.

[thuja]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gollum', 'I')'ve done well with the silver I have, but that was never my purpose any more than owning a house was to make dollars. I can sure see a 25 percent correction quite easy but in the longer term you can't print silver, and as trust in governments continues to decline I expect it to hold the relative value it had in 1914 when a dime bought a gallon of gas. The other day I was in a Subway sandwich shop in Montana, the sales girl was talking to a customer whom she clearly didn't know. She talked about how she and her husband were buying silver and he talked about dollars becoming worthless, point being while there is sure possibility for a correction down in silver but the upside is still quite stout as Joe public starts to see inflation and an inept government will be looking for some store of value for his extra cash.

[ColossalContrarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'H')ey, don't get me wrong, I don't have any skin in the game, I hope you guys make out like bandits. I said to sell out before now so what do I know?

Actually, I know you've already made out like bandits, except you aren't out of the bank. The problem is, the real bandits run the bank and will decide when the door closes.

People were feeling exactly like you when they owned:
dot.anything in 1999
Condos in '05
Oil in Q2 '08

I know, this time is different.

[mattduke]

The precious metals rally is evidently very upsetting and bewildering to those who do not understand money and therefore did not buy early.

[sparky]

.
Historically , silver was the medium of exchange , gold was way to rare

the whole point of holding gold or silver is that they are an universal value
that one can keep off banks , it assume one taking full ownership of one's assets
any speculation profit is immaterial ,
it's like a life jacket , totally useless most of the time and it take value and space
but then ... sometimes good to hold close

the ratio of silver to gold in the earth crust is about 1/16
this ratio is VERY variable for a variety of reasons
during the Spanish conquest , they were flooding Europe with gold but after a few years the use of the mercury process led to the Potosi mines becoming the Saudi Arabia of the 17th century
( a lot of Indian laborers died )
incidentally Europe was silver rich while the East is silver poor so there was a constant drain of silver bullion East , the demand of the Chinese imperial government for tea export to be paid cash in silver led to a monetary crisis solved by selling Indian opium to China .
As far as trading goes it was a success , when the Chinese officials prohibited the trade
the British started the Opium war in the name of free trade and got Hong Kong in the bargain
the California , Siberia ,South Africa , Australia mines got more gold in the market but demand was insatiable ,silverware boomed in the new middle classes
most silver is produced as a by product of copper mining ,
as a by product , its price is not tightly connected to supply and demand
in the 80ies the hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market and got badly burned

[Outcast_Searcher]

All I know is it's not hard to understand the psychology of why people don't trust the dollar -- looking at congress, the president AND their constituents, and trying to guess what is likely to happen to fix the problems.

I've been having this problem since the crash.

OK -- X (e.g. the stock market) has gone up "a lot". So great -- I should sell some. Fine. Then WHAT DO I PUT IT IN???

a). Dollars earning zero percent and depreciating compared to real goods (despite what the lying government claims about inflation)?

b). Other fiat paper currencies?

c). A general pool of commodities? Well, they're appreciating wildly too... And many of the ETF's for those have serious contango issues over time.

I understand the concerns about silver. I have silver bars and silver junk coins that I bought about 25 years(ish) ago at an average price of around $6.50, and now I'm going - WTF as silver escalates every week. Same problem for gold bought for an average price of perhaps $420 or so.

Seriously. What can a "rational" person who is concerned about the fiat paper system unraveling do?

One thought is to buy some kind of put options to protect oneself below the market(s) one is in, and just let those markets escalate while they hold their long commodities and stocks, etc.. That's NOT cheap either though. And long options lose time value.

Examples:

Per the CBOE delayed stock options quotes tonight:

http://www.cboe.com/DelayedQuote/QuoteTable.aspx

With SLV at 44.12, a Jan 2013 $44 put option will cost you about 20% of SLV's price.

If you want to think shorter term, a May 2012 $44 put option will cost you almost 5%. Drop back 10% in price protection to save money, and a $40 May put will cost you about 1.7%.

FCX -- a proxy for copper and gold -- with a great long term track record, global exposure, and apparently (IMO) good management -- the options are in the same ballpark percentage cost wise, and copper and gold have had MILD runs compared to silver.

If you'd rather hold dollars earning zero or dollar denominated long bonds earning 3%ish to 7%ish depending on credit quality, duration, etc -- knock yourself out, but to me that's just exposing yourself to another kind of risk.

By the way, there are pundits EVERYWHERE that will tell you THEY know exactly what will happen and what you should do. (Good luck picking the right ones to follow).

I just admit I don't know, stay diversified, grit my teeth and sell a little on the way up, and try to hold a basket of fiat currencies instead of just fiat dollars when I sell stuff off.

Only in hindsight (as always) will we be able to say "Oh - it was OBVIOUS" we should have done XYZ".

[mattduke]

If you were smart enough to buy silver then you obviously do your own thinking. Be right, sit tight. The status quo remains unchanged. PM owners are waiting for the main event, not day trading. Yes there will be severe pullbacks. We've already ridden through several. Study historical inflations. Turn off the TV. When then tsunami arrives, everyone will know it. I have a feeling that silver won't cost 45 bucks at that point.

[EnergyUnlimited]

This may not be of much interest to you, but gold or silver does *not* make so fantastic gains, if compared to Polish *zloty* (PLN).

Within last 8 months they still made some moderate gains in low double digits (~10% or so for gold and proportionally higher gains for silver), but in overall it is still far cry from American bonanza.

Last year about this time USD was trading for 3.1-3.3 PLN.
Now it is something like 2.7 USD.
So silver in Poland done really nicely, no argument here, but gold merely protected your assets against inflation, which is notoriously underreported.

This gains of silver are now in bubble territory.
I expect correction coming, possibly a sharp one.
However within few years silver may easily trade above $200 per ounce.
Courtesy to American inflationary policy.

[Blacksmith]

http://dont-tread-on.me/the-silver-window-is-closing/
http://dont-tread-on.me/the-silver-rocket/
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1250621683.php
http://www.financialsensearchive.com/fs ... /1111.html

[patience]

Silver is somewhat bubbly, and also showing a short squeeze (JP Morgan and HSBC). Eventually TPTB will intervene to save their buddies--AGAIN--like they did when the Hunt's actually DID corner the market. But the Hunts did it on margin contracts = 90% borrowed money. All that was needed was to jack up the margin % and the Hunts couldn't come up with the extra money and had to sell starting a rout.

TPTB change the rules when it suits them. Don't buy on margin, take delivery, and be ready to drop the stuff when it looks too good to be true--'cuz it IS. Selling mine soon. (Bought at $13.) No, I'm not calling a top. I'm just taking a safe profit. You can push your luck if you want. I WILL lose some "opportunity" by selling out early. But I will make a profit. Wait too late and might not make a profit, or have to wait a very long time to see it go up again. I'm old and don't plan on waiting that long.

[eXpat]

Silver flirts with $50
‎Silver Shoots To Record As Dollar Falls
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')EW YORK—Silver futures surged to a record high and gold inched to its own highest-ever price as investors sought the metals as an alternative to the weak U.S. dollar.

The most actively traded silver contract, for May delivery, touched a record $49.820 a troy ounce and was up 4.2%, or $1.956, at $48.015 per troy ounce in early morning trade. The thinly traded nearby April contract hit $49.105, just shy of its 1980 record of $50.360 around the time the Hunt brothers attempted to corner the silver market.

"Concerns about the dollar have produced a big run into the metals," said Sterling Smith, an analyst with Country Hedging.

Silver was far outpacing gold's gains as the gray metal continued to benefit from its relative cheapness compared with gold.

[Pretorian]

i say it goes to break the old record then back to $10-15. It's not worth more than that for industry.

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'i') say it goes to break the old record then back to $10-15. It's not worth more than that for industry.

[Pretorian]

what about platinum? No?