marceau

I'm watching silver. It's falling. I'm buying. Edit: 15% VAT makes me happy!

Me too. I now own half the world's gold. Watch out though, I may sell it all and crash the market.

Agree, a 'jam tomorrow' story for goldbugs. Is COMEX fair? Probably not. Will it default because of the actions of a few gold bugs? Again, probably not. Gold will have it's day when the world suddenly realises that paper is worth nothing. That could still be a long time away (but it's wise to be positioned well ahead of the crowd).

I'm watching that berk Darling on the BBC as I write. It's so clear that the government are going to try and bail out everyone and everything with borrowed money for as long as the world will let them. I can't quote him word for word, but one of his lines was about keeping people in employment no matter what the cost. That will be an even more bloated public sector on its way, then. I reckon they have less than a year before no-one will buy their debt. As much of a tosspot as Osbourne is, I have to agree with him that what is being planned now will send the pound to unimaginable depths. I'll be sticking with gold. Who knows which way this nightmare is going to whipsaw over the next decade. We'll have massive inflation one minute and deflationary default the next. NONE OF IT WILL BE TIMEABLE. I'll buy where I see value that can survive to the other side.

Time it wrong and VOLATILITY = BANKRUPTCY. Unless you have no assets to preserve or protect, trading this market is insanity.

A matter of timing, wheely. It's going to take a hell of a jolt to send the markets back to gold now, so I can see us declining further in the short - medium term. I'm also pretty sure that jolt will eventually come in the form of either terrifying inflation, or equally terrifying total banking collapse, at some point next year. I'm still buying physical in the short term because further falls in paper gold will have a negligable impact on the price of any physical I can get hold of, so I might as well buy now as I probably won't get better prices by waiting. I will, however, aim to time my commodity and mining stock purchases in order to maximise profit, probably just before and after Christmas. I'm certainly not advocating waiting until next year to make big purchases, the chance of missing the boat will be too great. But staying on the sides with cash does make some sense at the moment, particularly if you already have good holdings of gold and mining shares. Edit: And I agree with Bubb, oil can't be far from the bottom now. One more sell off ought to do it.

Strange isn't it? Despite all that's happened gold is sat in pretty much exactly the same place as it was at the start of the year in £ terms (for larger quantities of gold only, coins and small bars are, of course a different matter). I've been looking to buy a kilo gold bar or two and I think I may just take the plunge right now. I haven't a clue where the £ is going, and to be honest I don't think it matters, pretty much every currency is going to be worth a hell of a lot less in a year's time.

Agreed. I know a lot of people won't want to hear this, but I can't see gold going up again significantly for many months and I'm expecting further declines just before Christmas. Not that this will make any difference to the price of a physical ounce (so I'll keep drip feeding in that department), but I think it could be wise to start building a good cash pile in the meantime. I would expect to get some good stink bids on commodity shares just before Xmas, particularly if we've had another sell off before then. If prices are further down I think the old end of year tax bargains game could be extremely profitable. Any thoughts for another end of year tax bargain list, Bubb?

At the rate we are going the percentage will be 0 in less than a year. Timings the sort of swings we are getting at the moment is impossible, even for the supposed hedge fund 'geniuses'. Just one wrong move will wipe them out for good. For most hedgies, their alpha has already gone up in smoke, the next year will see their solvency go the same way.

I can see paper gold falling all the way to $600 to be honest. Not that it matters, the disconnect between paper fantasy and physical reality will only get bigger as time goes on. The miners have already been slaughtered, you can't get an ounce of gold for anywhere near spot anyway, so what are you what are you waiting for? We're past the point in the game where playing paper gold is wise or even possible. The swings will be too fast, large and violent to allow anything but 'roulette' style-trading in the market. It's time to just buy the metal or the shares and hold them to the other side.

Hello all, hope everyone is well (or as well as you can be considering the circumstances). I decided to take a break from the markets in September and go for 2 months without even looking at a trading screen. I have to say it's been quite relaxing just sitting things out while this catastrophy has unfolded. Sadly, my mining portfolio now looks like Hiroshima at the end of world war 2, but I'm strangely unconcerned to be honest, I'm sure things will bounce back. It's good to see the physical gold actually increase in price in £ terms, which just goes to show the insurance value coins and bars can have even in the worst of times. In fact in paper terms I'm actually doing quite well when I count my physical holdings and the payout from all the shorts I closed last week. Anyway, I've got lots of reading to do in order to catch up with the opinions of those I trust (particularly on this site). I hope no-one got totally wiped out during the commodity tumble, but judging by the same old faces hanging around here I'm sure that hasn't happened. I look forward to again being able to talk with people who actually have some insight into this situation. There's been a shocking lack of clarity, knowledge and, to be honest, even concern about the economy from those I've been around recently (sadly, it really just hasn't sunk in for most people yet). No matter how right I've been about the current situation in the past, most I know still think my thoughts about the future are laughable. I guess I'll just have to keep my mouth shut and keep booking the profits It's nice to be back. M

Well I'm finally back after almost 4 weeks away from a computer and as usual gold has gone crazy. Unfortunately it went crazy in completely the wrong direction and it would be fair to say my speculative cash pot has taken something of a pounding. There are saving graces, as once my stops were hit I was unable to re-enter the market. This prevented me from buying even more on the way down ($890, $870, $850, $800, I would have bought them all) and losing a packet more (which I undoubtedly would have done), so it wasn't an absolute wash out for me. It's taken me almost 3 days to read all of the online material I've missed over the last month or so and to be honest it's been heartbreaking to see just how effectively the financial fraudsters have managed to pick the small guys pocket yet again. What particulalry riles me is that they expend so much effort fleecing those who are earnestly trying to protect their wealth while simultaneously propping up fast buck speculators in housing and the stockmarkets. Free markets? I think not. Nonetheless I'm still a total PM bull and like pretty much everyone else on here I can't see any fundamental change in the causes which made me invest in PMs in the first place. Also like everyone else I haven't sold an ounce of my core positions and don't intend to do so until the REAL picture changes. Those who think gold is dead really haven't grasped the severity of this situation. There's a whole flock of black swans moving out of the reeds as we speak and they're hell bent on making sure the market and the central banks get their arms broken. I'm still drip feed buying, but as for short term trading I think I'll give it a rest for a while. If this really is the deflationary scare before the inflationary take off then I have a sneaking suspicion we're going to see falls in the 40% region before reality kicks back into gold and silver (sub $600 sounds crazy, but this market really is that stupid). So as I can't bring myself to short gold, I'll take the easy option and stay out until we have a safer technical picture. I suppose the bottom line is that this gives me even more time to accumulate something with real value. So that's what I'll carry on doing month after month and, if necessary, year after year. That's all for now, I hope no-one on here got too badly burned.

Ditto, this smells like a pre-rally cleanout to me, the small guy just got mugged (again). I haven't sold a thing and don't intend to do so, there is the chance they'll try and knock out the stops at $920 as well but I think that would really be pushing it too far. The weak hands have yet again been bullied out of the game. Everyone on here should know what happens after that in a bull market. Edit: You still have to admire how well they've managed to kill off gold over the last few weeks with absolutely no fundamentals to back them up. That has to take real skill. Maybe in future they should put it to good use by actually producing something worthwhile, rather than robbing Joe Six-pack through inflation and gold manipulation.

I placed a trade this large once and unfortunately the market moved against me. I was in a position similiar to this one, close to support in a power uptrend back to old highs, then the support failed and I didn't sleep for days while things looked like they were going to plummet. The pressure was too much so I sold at breakeven when the price came back up. Lucky I did because the upmove was just a bounce before some prolonged falls, which would have slowly and painfully wiped me out. That was in mid-June 2006, it took the best part of 6 months for the price to recover back to the levels I had bought/sold at, and almost another year on top of that before the old May peaks were recovered. For those on big leverage please check the charts from that period to see what can happen when you bet too heavily on a 'sure thing'. For the short term I now trade in much, much smaller quantities and tend to drip feed contracts, always making sure I'm sufficiently capitalised to cope with a $50-100 gold price fall. This volatility isn't going to go away, so max leverage is probably no better than roulette from here on in to be honest. As always it's risk/reward, but it's definately worth having an eye on the door for when things go wrong.

Sorry to hear that Bobsta, silver is so tricky to trade, particularly with stops. If I place a silver trade I don't use stops at all, not only because of the volatility, but also because of the less than honest tactics of certain players during thin parts of the market (I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a well orchestrated $1-3 smackdown last only a matter of seconds before moving straight back to the normal price. The deep pocketed fraudsters just smash the smalls guy's stops and steal their money in less than a minute.).

It's really quite comforting to know that no matter how ridiculously bullish the fundamental and technical picture for gold may be, the cartel/PPT will carry on providing opportunities like this all the way up. This knowledge does some important things for me, it stops me from panic buying for a start, but it also gives me time to accumulate at a steady and affordable pace. In my opinion the cartel should be celebrated, they're giving us plenty of opportunities to buy into a profitable market at bargain prices. If this were any other market the big guys would have moved the price beyond our reach long ago. In a way it's the manipulation which makes investing in gold and silver so rewarding. If I ever meet Bernanke I may well shake him by the hand, but I suspect he won't be going out in public for some time once this catastrophy starts to get going for real.

I didn't honestly think we'd drop this far, but if the cartel wants to give me yet another chance to buy cheap gold, then who am I to stop them. I'm fairly heavily loaded now and from here on in will just wait. Unfortunately sometimes that's the hardest part. Oh and for all those interested in unconventional indicators, I'm due to be away without access to a computer for the next three weeks or so. Since I've been posting on GEI these absences have been uncannily reliable cues for gold to rally by anywhere between $50 and $100 dollars, so I thought I'd tell people in advance this time. I've made my longs and will check back in late August. Here's hoping I become the antithesis of Silver Sammy in the indicator stakes.

If you were using TA to short term trade yesterday you probably would have been fried, as the price swung dramatically up and down in a highly unpredictable manner. Yes, the numbers weren't big, but look at the intraday chart and tell me that wasn't volatile, particularly that last drop, which totally shattered a solid $20 move up in minutes.

Put simply there's too much fear. That second drop will have knocked the wind out of the bulls for a while, couple that with a decidedly shaky oil price and you've got brown trousers territory for the gold longs. But back on reality street nothing has really changed, just more bad news being spun as good. JPM release a set of less poor than expected (but still awful) results, oil drops to $129 and suddenly the market will be fine? How are people still falling for this? I'm consistently stunned at how little it takes to scare investors away from gold. Just 3 days ago everyone was sure it was going straight through $1000 without ever pulling back. Now they're all convinced we'll be back in the low $900s by the end of the week. I thought we were going to pullback to the $950s and now we have, there has been no technical violation of the uptrend and from the charts and fundamentals it wouldn't be ridiculous to say we're due a nice rally now. Look back at my posts over the last few days, I mentioned that very few will actually buy near the $950 level, they'll be too scared of more falls to realise they're near the bottom. I've been taking long positions furiously today, fear amongst the sheep generally means it's time to buy.

I've taken additional longs in silver. Seems to have overreacted yet again to the downside. Tomorrow will be important, if they can't smack gold down below $950 by market close then we'll be on the launchpad for next week. The only thing that concerns me is the volume on that move, it must have been big to smash the buying strength which went into the rise to $978. The volatility today has been quite astounding.

It is indeed. Oil just broke down through $130 and that fall in gold was brutal, particularly given the rise which preceeded it. Well we're back in the low $950 buy zone again, but this time there's an element of fear in the air. As I said earlier, time for balls of steel and buys of gold (and silver).

Somewhere between $910 and $920 would be the next major support. Personally I think if it dips below $950 (or $947) it's more likely to be a bear trap than an extended correction. But don't bet your life on it.

This move (so far) has been fairly predictable in TA terms and has really been a matter of patience. I'll be interested to see if I'm still so rational when a spanner gets thrown in the works. I have a feeling I'll need to dig out my biggest set of steel balls for the next few day's trading.

More than possible, however I have already made some medium term buys on the dips to $955 and the dip to $953. If we get smacked down futher I will add more. I'm keen to see what mark down I can get on miners when the NYSE opens.

$955, I'm starting to buy again. I'll add more longs on further weakness. Hoping to see a sell-off to under $950.