Bobsta

If those guys bought to close short positions during March, they must've been kicking themselves when it plummeted! Ah well, I'm not gonna feel sorry for them.

Incidentally, is it just me or has the whole board's timezone changed to EST (ie 5hrs behind the UK)?

Fell at exactly the same time but with an even greater force. Silver is like Gold's special "springy" cousin. The question now is, when is the bottom of the dip. Those clever folks out there always say "buy the dips" ... but spotting one without hindsight and/or a time machine is quite tough IMHO. (looking forward to the arrival of a book on TA from Amazon this week!)

I think you spoke a bit too soon....

So Silver ended the week below $18/oz, having flirted around $18.50 for some time. Last weekend many were forecasting further falls - potentially below the 200dma. So was this week a dead cat bounce or do folks feel we've had some settlement at this area and will be heading higher from here. (of course "settlement" and "silver" are oxymorons - but "relative settlement" maybe?! )

You should ask your broker to auto-roll your positions. Enjoy your success! But as there's more upside to Gold, I suspect you'll be back for more. Just be careful not to get too greedy.

Why close it? Leave it open!! You effectively bought £45ks worth of gold (£50 per dollar). Keep it!

You beat me to it. I wasn't sure if it was quiet on here as everyone didn't want to tempt fate ... But today I'm feeling much better about "riding the bull". Of course, it's an easy ride when moving in the "right" direction... but I'm generally in a much better mood than I was last week, having put it all into perspective and spent the weekend reading up. So. Yes. Smackdowns. I'm sure they'll come. We just have to accept them as part of the package. (interesting that a number of folks turned bearish on gold and silver during the last week - I'll probably be keeping an eye on them more than anyone going forward)

Now I guess I could/should start a new thread on this ... but I feel it's worth discussing here, if you guys/girls don't mind... the Carry Trade. Every now and then, the CHF and JPY have a bad day. This is normally attributed to carry trade activity and usually coincides with a good day on the US (and European) stock markets. Today is a good example: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...;refer=currency ... the standard view is, as has been common for many years, investors "borrow cheap" in Switzerland and Japan to buy US stocks. Now, call me stupid, but what is the current US interest rate right now? And what is it in Switzerland? ...... erm, I know credit is drying up in the US but surely it isn't *really* cheaper to obtain funds in Switzerland, is it? And with the dollar generally weakening, unless the folks carrying out this activity hedge their position WRT currency movements, they're opening themselves up to a shortfall when the time comes to repay the loan. If they are hedging their position then there would be no gain/movement in FX anyway..... so .... well, it just doesn't quite add up to me. I really didn't expect the carry trade to survive this long. Carry Trade unwinding was the buzz-phrase of summer 2007 on HPC.co.uk

I read it too - I think it was linked on this thread somewhere. There's a MoneyWeek article on it: http://www.moneyweek.com/file/27194/the-st...ket-genius.html And further googling yields: http://www.contrahour.com/contrahour/2006/...n_armstron.html Frizzers has a thread/post on it here: http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....3&pid=15270 Although I'm sure there's another page I've seen that has a big "VWV" (peak / trough) chart on which I can't find right now. More hunting required. Edited to say: As Frizzers writes for Money Week, I suspect he may have written (or heavily contributed to) the Money Week article linked above - it doesn't have a specific author attributed to it.

Pound and USD both rallying quite a bit today. Looks like everything's OK then!

Most organisations have "people" on-call over holiday periods to comment to the press. My missus has to do it now and again for her (public sector) organisation. Given the current climate I don't find it hugely surprising that the BoE press office is working this weekend.

Just out of interest... what are you shorting? I've made several attempts to short Paragon, Rightmove, et al over the past few months and always found there's not enough liquidity in the market to do it (ie *everyone's* shorting at the same time). Are short specific stocks or whole indices?

Pluto, you seem to be making more and more sense lately. Maybe I'm just unnerved by the latest events and more inclined to agree... But to my way of thinking, you're onto something. Are you short gold, or do you still see a role for it in "Pluto's future world"?

Gold:Silver ratio now ~54.6 ... either Silver's very cheap or Gold's expensive.

Just like the UK housing market then. No supply because people won't sell as the price is falling. <this is a (poor) joke BTW>

Bloomberg update just now had the anchor reading out the usual market info ... got to Gold "down ~1.5%" ... then Silver "which usually moves in concert with Gold <pauses> down over 8.5%!" <big note of surprise in his voice> Some bird giving a market update saying Gold's drop this week is approaching the biggest fall in 25 years. Oh well. Makes life interesting, and makes going to work worthwhile!!

The volatility at the moment is simply astounding. I just noticed Platinum shooting up markedly... Now, studying the chart, is it me or are those pesky meddlers trying to form a pair of platinum boobies today?!? http://www.kitco.com/charts/liveplatinum.html

Yep, using leverage... but "leverage I can afford" (if that makes sense and doesn't come across as arrogant). By that I mean I hold positions that were fully backed by cash in savings accounts.... I went over this on the way down and that's what's hurting me now. I've kept the positions open (closed out a little) but the killer is watching your "on screen profits" shrink so massively from Monday morning to today. Getting a margin call from Cantor Index this morning whilst walking past the BoE was kinda ironic... I completely agree that if I had a stack of gold and silver coins at home this drop wouldn't be anywhere near as obvious and painful.

My gold losses have been bearable ... just brought me back to near where I started. However I've been burned very badly by Silver (see my post a few days ago in which I warned that I knew my strategy would lead to me "chasing the market down" - which it has). Grumble, grumble. Not feeling particularly great today, I must admit.

It's all the fault of the BBC. They carried a feature on Monday morning's BBC Breakfast telling the general public how to buy gold. It was bound to be downhill from there...

Certainly better than 2-3 weeks ago! (sorry, that didn't really add much)

Certainly is quite amazing the difference between now and 54 hours ago. I've gone from Carrera 4 to Cayman S type territory... that's quite a kicking. (not that I ever would blow my profits in such a way)

Really wish I hadn't dabbled in Platinum... Oh well, it's all part of the learning curve, I guess.

Or maybe there isn't. Seems a great way to make money these days: Open some short positions, post out a few rumours on various boards and sit back and reel in the cash. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/27a93048-f588-11...?nclick_check=1