Bobsta

Yep, I agree... and was just about to post a link myself. It's almost as though Mr Frisby has been reading this thread!

Now... I wouldn't say I'm ready to join the "deflationist" camp just yet but... I've been thinking. We're already seeing used car prices falling, house prices falling, and other assets typically purchased with credit suffer. A worldwide recession will undoubtedly reduce demand for many products, and reign in much expansion which would otherwise consume commodities. Reading http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e6abbf2-f43a-11...00779fd2ac.html you'd think it all might end in tears for commodities. So when we consider that silver in particular IS used in manfacturing (talk of camera film and antibacterial products on this board recently), how can we be sure that G & S are "special / immune" from such effects just because historically they've been considered money?

cgnao's predicting a (temporary?) hammering for gold... I'm sure he could be right, but I'm leaving my holdings as they are. Any views on GBP's bounce-back today? I guess it was just "over-sold" yesterday... but have been offline so haven't seen any news coverage today.

I wonder if we could make it the HPC goldfinger cgnao gold thread? For research on buying gold and gold chart info this would surely be the answer.

I'm not so sure the PPT could create the sheer volume that's been seen today... 1.99billion shares traded on the NYSE according to Bloomberg TV a few moments ago. To understand why the markets reacted the way they did today you only need to watch Bloomberg. "Mainstream" folks don't seem to look at the world the way "we" do. An analyst 20 mins ago was arguing that: - The Fed has come out and said they'll do whatever it takes to help the banks. - With The Fed on-side, Banks are therefore good investments. and - The current crisis is a liquidity crisis. - The long-term prospects for banks are still good. ... most folks don't see this money-creation thing as a problem. Following the same logic, days like today scream "Oh jeez... Recession's coming". If a recession comes then there is less demand for oil, copper and other commodities. Ergo prices should fall. (IMO, Gold and Silver aren't commodities) As the saying goes - "know your enemy" - it's really worthwhile taking the time to follow the mainstream financial media, especially US financial media (Bloomberg, Fox, et al) to understand why the markets sometimes move out of line with your expectations.

PM = Precious Metal(s). Welcome.

If you're right (and I think you probably are!)... what a huge contrast between the asian markets "hey, those PMs look like a good investment" and the US markets "sheeet guys, sell whatever you can, we need the cash!". If I had the balls I'd buy heavily now anticipating the asians coming online tonight and picking up some bargains.

However........... surely there comes a point at which the share price of REAL companies (that do/make REAL things) will rise. After all, they're priced in dollars and as the dollar falls in value, the share price should rise. It should be just the financials, the "nothing companies" and the over-leveraged that suffer in this market. It's for those reasons that I'm NOT pulling out the money I have in my pensions, and share portfolios. Solid companies should be fine. Or am I completely missing something here?

Any views on why Platinum is taking a pounding today? Have S.A. suddenly found lots of power capacity for the mines? Edited to say: I guess just the general "recession is coming so we won't need as much of this stuff for manufacturing"?

Why? You're getting a bargain if you buy right now. Saving nearly 50c/oz compared to last night's price. I, through random luck, had a stop in that went and dumped £6k's worth at 2035. So I then bought £10k's worth back at 2025 ... now up to 2046, so happy with that. As I say, PURE random speculation - I shouldn't have had the stop in place and was quite shocked when I got the text through alerting me to the trade.

This second video from Fox on the same day is also great: http://www.europac.net/Schiff-Fox-3-14-08_lg.asp It infuriates and amazes me that these so-called "experts" / "economists" point-blank fail to recognise that if you increase the supply of dollars automatically each one is worth less! Schiff is also quoted in Friday's Daily Telegraph here: Dollar under pressure as US outlook darkens (also copied on Schiff's site). Interesting quote from that article (not by Schiff)...

Dopamine, you've confused me a little with this point. IMHO the best way to look at how much you're welling to "bet" is to look at your overall exposure. By this I mean... If your provider lists gold at "1003.4" and you go long at £10/point, then you've effectively "bought" £10,034 of gold. Similarly if your provider lists silver at "2075" and you go long at £5/point, then you've effectively "bought £10,375 of silver. So if you're comfortable holding ~£100k of gold you'd place £100/point ... and similarly £50/point of silver. If you bought £100k of gold and it dropped 10% in value you'd lose £10k. If it gained 10% you'd make £10k. Your positions will do the same. Similarly I have savings I wanted to "convert" into Swiss Francs so I purchased positions in CHF/GBP to the same value of the funds I wanted to protect. Same result is achieved. I wouldn't get too hung up on the "number of points" ... just the overall value. (e.g. IGIndex quote gold as "1003.4", CantorIndex quote it as "10034" ... so £5/point with Cantor is the same as £50/point with IG). Edited to add: I know the gold purists will be cringing reading this. I apologise... I only "invest" this way as it's easier. I appreciate that I'm still dealing in electronic/paper promises and should my spreadbetting companies go to the wall I'd probably lose everything. In time, I will look to convert some of this profit into physical.

I've been using a similar approach. In the early days I opened a few positions... things went well. Then I increased my positions , and having read up a little more, I put stops in place. Then two things happened: 1) A few markets I was invested in moved against me, losing me money. 2) Some of my stops tripped during swings, losing me money. At one point, having been smugly sitting on ~£1000 of profit, I was over £4000 in the red. I got margin calls - and rapidly had to shovel several thousand pounds into my accounts to keep my positions open. And that's the key - keeping them open. You really have to stand back and think "am I confident my predictions are right?" ... if you are, then you MUST NOT sell on the falls. You'll only kick yourself when you walk away saying "spread betting is dangerous" only to then see the price go through the roof over the coming months. Since then, I've adopted this approach and to-date it's working very well: Open positions to a level at which you're comfortable. Don't use stops. Especially in a market as volatile as silver, selling on dips is a bad move and you'll get shaken out quite often. Instead, set up limit orders to BUY small amounts when the price drops significantly. I do this so that IGIndex send me a text and it alerts me to the drop. I can then log in and make a decision on what to do. When the price then rises above it's previous average, sell a few of those positions that you bought on the dip. If your long-term view is correct, this method WORKS. Remain professional and unemotional in your dealing. Don't monitor the market too closely or you'll have days when you see your "worth" drop by several thousand pounds in a day. It can also affect your job if you're constantly logged into your account wheeling and dealing. In general, I'm convinced that a "hands-off" approach is generally better than a "hands-on" one. Follow the same approach that the long-term physical holders use. You don't hear of Goldfinger sloping off to sell his bullion if the price dips, so why should you do the same? You're using financial instruments instead of physical because it's easier and has less margin, however you should adopt the same strategy. As I say: avoid stops. I'm aware that this system will be absolutely useless in the event that my (our?) predictions are wrong. If you follow this system to the letter and the price consistently falls you'll end up chasing the market down and burn all your cash faster than Bernanke's been burning the dollar. Similar to today's young bankers who've only ever worked in a credit-fueled bull market, you need to spare a thought for what *might* happen. However, as long as you're convinced that the price WILL rise, hold onto those positions. Silver and Platinum are quite volatile and you can make good money playing the moves. But honestly I've made far more from my long gold and short GBP positions - with next-to-zero (daytime trading) effort.

After a good week for those of us in "articles of wealth other than US dollars and British pounds", I thought it was time for some celebratory "chart and graph" humour... Enjoy: http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/graphs/popular/

Thanks Wren, I wasn't aware, no. <hangs head in shame> ... that's a great charting tool. Looking at the 1month CHF chart really says "nothing to see here" on the current movements. It doesn't make me feel uneasy at all. Edited to say: I note if you google "goldfinger gold thread" you now hit the Silver thread on this board. More work is clearly required to make THIS thread the number one gold hit for migrants from HPC.

That's a very important point.... with the USD falling in value versus other currencies, Gold's USD price has to rise - otherwise there'd be a margin for currency arbitrage. Looking at the price in CHF I suspect there would be very little "mania"... unfortunately I can't find a decent XAU/GBP chart. Anyone have anything better than this?...

I note the CHF has reached parity with the USD today for the first time ever. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...;refer=currency This is a telling chart, if ever I saw one... http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&s=U...mp;c=GBPCHF%3Dx

Royal Gold having a great day too.... Thanks for the tip guys.

I just sold £3/point of April Gold futures for $1000.05 ... does that count?

So... donning my "naive cap" for a moment. Why does the government want to medicate us all with fluorine / fluoride? I remember from GCSE science that the stuff's horrible and will kill you in an instant ... but that it has uses in preventing tooth decay. WTF would they put it in the water supply if it's already in toothpaste?

Eh?!! The whole point of messing around with the DST timings was to save energy! At least that's what they said at the time. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy...ght_saving_time ... oh, I see folks are now wondering whether it actually saves or wastes more energy. Fools. All that wasted effort! (the IT spend alone on the DST changes must run into many, many millions of dollars)

This is classic Bloomberg "try to find an explanation for what the market just did" ... I've witnessed this repeatedly over the past few months when reading their articles on currency markets. "Dollar firms as traders view currency as over-sold"... erm, yeah, whatever you reckon. There are often completely contradictory articles listed at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/markets/currencies.html on an average trading day.

Volatility in silver and Platinum definitely increasing. A ~5% swing to the downside this morning. Hold onto your hats! (or just switch off and don't bother following the market )

I sold a flat in London (IoD / Docklands) in late 2004 (completed April 2005)... I'm not bothered by it because my wife and I have now had the chance to live in some great rented properties in different parts of the country in a kind-of "try before you buy" type way. If I'd held on 2 more years I could've got an extra £50k or so for it... But I've made more than that (when measured in today's devalued GBP) in my investments in PMs and other currencies in the last 6 months... so I'm not bothered at all. And yes, selling BEFORE the top rather than AFTER the top is key. I'm not one to be greedy.

Oh, don't get me wrong... I owe the forum (and its posters) a great deal. Arguably they helped me decide to STR too early. ... but we'll overlook that. I just don't like what it seems to have turned into over the past 3-6 months. I guess the way to change that is to actively post. But, like many, my free time is limited and I have to carefully choose what to spend it on.