grumpy-old-man

Hi GOM, long time no see! - I just sent you an email - on the subject of silver, FWIW, I have been reading plenty of anecdotals on other forums - anyhoos one which leapt out at me was a guy who's brother-in-law is a very succesful FX trader in Chicago - told the guy to load up on silver as he and his currency trading friends think silver is soon going back to 15:1 - take it for what it's worth - to me, that could happen with a massive commercial signal failure, a dollar collapse, or something black swan-like by the Chinese or others (G20 meeting, end of USA fiscal year on Sept 30th) - or more likely, all three or combos thereoff ...

hey cdswamp, will check my mail.

nice to see you back.

edited - hope you're right about silver. I am 70:30 silver:gold at the mo, on the advice/information of a few posters on here.

Maybe this here helps with your decisions.

that's the one that changed my mind on my ratio GF.

ok, history may not repeat, but silver has a lot to offer imho, especially from the mining/industrial use pov.

Well, I would get out of cash if it was me and I didn't need cash to buy the cars until next year. I don't like leaving much at all in cash.

I have been 'finger biting' for a few days now TrueNorth.

edited - just to clarify I am not working as I am training (still, long story to those that remember), so I have no wage going in atm.

I think the stock markets will crash soon, taking pms down with them temporarily.

 

Then I'll jump back in.

 

If the stockmarkets crash and pms go up, I'll buy in having missed some gains, but having taken some profit now and avoided the risk of (paper) losses if things crash I feel better.

 

The cash is in BV and Golmoney accounts....so just a couple of clicks away and I'll fill my boots!

 

Nick

ah, ok Nick.

I still have a fair bit in my euro account (for me anyway), which I do not like & am feeling unhappy with this situation tbh.

edited - I think I will buy some more gold coins if/when the price dips with the carpot money as we don't intend to change the cars until next year anyway. I might as well give it a few weeks now though I suppose ??

You have done well to buy your PMs when you did GOM. Nice bit of timing, you must be up already.

I actually typed out a post a few minutes ago in response to GF's 'you got to be in it to win it' post, but thought I might sound a bit shouty, if you know what I mean.

tbh, I was really panicking because I knew I had left it very, very late. I would have bought earlier but we had planned on leaving that French house. I am happy with my current situation BUT I still have some euros left tbh. This money is earmarked for 2 new (3 year old) cars, enough to cover the kids Uni fees/diggs for 2 years & enough for 6 months rent in advance in case we need it for next year's relocation. edited - I know I should be buying more pm's with this though.

I also have about euros 5k after that for more pm's. I would have loved to buy those few coins az, glad you sold them though.

Just had a quick look at hpc....surprised to see so many new threads about gold...a few examples "Is gold money?", Where can I get Gold coins?", "Gold price about to be manipulated", etc, etc...

 

Maybe they are finaly 'getting' it?

 

History is unfolding in front of our eyes - we live in interesting times!

that's why I have been busy over there recently, couldn't resist after the majority of idiots slated pm's for the last few years.

Me too. Have sold out anticipating Dow/FTSE plunge in the next three months, then will buy back.

 

We are not at the endgame or hyperinflation yet and piles of government debt needs to be dealt with.

 

I think the Americans and Chinese will fight each other over gold and silver, and the Chinese will let them take prices down and the dollar up, then stick the knife in and buy big- screwing those banks that short the price down.

 

Buy and hold is one strategy, but I think it overlooks certain opportunities. Frequent trading is a mug's game.

what makes you think that now isn't that time ? Remember they have been surpressing the pm prices for many years.

So you must be sat now with 100% currency then in a bank(s)? :o Rather you than me.

I still don't use the ratio. Sorry to you guys who do

 

Remember this thread:

 

Gold versus Silver, Volatility & Swapping

http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=3127

thanks for that link Steve.

I have just read the thread. Horses for course then.....surely better to use everything, DMA, G/S ratio & gut feeling. My personal opinion (even when I didn't have much pm's) was that Pgold & Psilver would be king, then it's just down to how you do your split.

If I don't get the timing quite right I tend to stick with it and wait for the next likely turn.

I don't wobble rapidly backwards and forwards

agreed.

When the ratio is low the history of the last several years suggests that it's a good time to swap silver into gold.

 

When the ratio is high it has been favourable to swap gold into silver.

 

This way over the years some guys increase their total ounces over just sitting and holding.

 

However, considering that you have bars and coins selling one to buy the other would incur extra costs from the premiums (and VAT in the case of buying silver).

 

I believe that sometime probably late in this bull market the ratio will go to 20:1 or less (very long term like 20 years or so it could even go to 8:1 or lower).

 

So although the swapping has been friutful in this bull market so far at some point the swappers who swap at say 48 or 50 (which has been good so far) will get caught out. E.g. the ratio goes to say 48:1 and silver owners swap for gold, but the ratio continues to drop which one day it will have to if it is ever to reach 20:1. If that happens they would have been better off not swapping as silver does a Mars shot while gold does only a Moon shot.

 

In your case with physical silver bars I'd suggest that you just buy and hold until they buy a lot more house than today.

 

 

The huge spike was the time to exit gold and silver for different assets.

 

It's best to compare them with real assets like houses and don't let the nominal paper money price deceive you.

thanks also Wren.

Hi GOM

 

An old chart of mine - sorry it is not updated for the last 6 months or so - but I think this sums up my thinking

 

I'm not so sure the price of the metals matters much, especially if you are just accumulating PMs for a future purchase (from memory, I think a house is your plan). Thinking about this with respect to my circumstances, a house will be c. $100 oz gold, a new career (medical school) about $30 oz. I'm simply using the gold-to-silver ratio as a way to get extra ounces on the way to these targets than if I converted my monthly savings to gold straight off.

yes, you are right, it's mainly for a house purchase. I am hoping the silver alone might do this @ 4 x ?

 

+ Notice that the ratio spends a lot of time at 50-55 - it is the largest bin size so there is no need to panic a decision to swap silver for gold in this ratio range. However, the bins below 50 are very small in size, so if the ratio falls below 50, it is likely that a spike is occuring, and so a quick decision is needed to swap.

 

+ Also - and a seperate issue I am still thinking about - I'd rather hold gold than silver during the 'April - August' doldrums as it has more of a floor (especially now China appear to be hoovering up gold every time there is a significant dip) . Silver seems to have a really low floor (around $5, where I believe it becomes unworthwhile to produce for miners), so it is more risky to hold silver during the seasonal doldrums than gold. I need to think this through more, it remains just a theory at the moment, any thoughts welcome.

that's a great chart DCA & info, many thanks. I will be learning about this & keeping a close eye on this ratio then.

I would buy if I didn't have any silver. These prices will look dirt cheap in the future.

 

I wouldn't swap my gold for silver at the moment. Gold is a lower risk currency.

 

 

Most people here said they would swap silver for gold at 50:1 last time this was properly debated.

 

I will be swapping a percentage of my silver for gold at 45:1, some more at 40:1, more at 35:1 and so on. I will only be doing this with my GoldMoney silver.

 

I won't consider swapping my coins till we get to 15:1.

 

I have no plans to trade my coins for another asset unless I am desperate. The money printing will never stop so I will keep holding my coins

 

EDIT: Silver over $17/toz

ah, that makes perfect sense now. I only talk about physical because that's all I have (or want )

Gold-to-silver ratio now 59.3

 

My plan is to swap for gold at :

 

- 51

or

- mid February

right I am obviously not completely understanding the gold:silver ratio then. I though you would wait for silver to be a lot higher in price terms first, or does this just depend on what you bought in at & what your silver:gold split is ?

so when the silver ratio is at its lowest, that's the best time to sell your silver ? am I understanding this chart below correctly ?

so that huge spike in '79 was when the pos shot through the roof for a short time ? then you would either buy another hard asset with the currency of your choice, or buy back into gold then ?

edited - I know GF has been talking a lot about this lately.

You are definitely a grumpy old woman!! You seem to be making a habit of calling attention to particular posters on another site.

I am amazed at the attitude tbh, this particular poster I know quite well.

so many stories I could tell, but it's not my style.

I will leave it now though......it's wasted energy I know, & I am detracting from the informative gold postings (& my further education), my apologies. I really mean that btw.

I suppose where we are upto on those scales changes based on which sections of society that we are talking about. HPC certainly banned the open discussion on gold as do most of the mainstream media. Only a small percentage of people follow current events and very few of those people use the internet for news. Only a tiny fraction of understand enough about what's happening to be actively following the events on forums like HPC, and only a small number of us posting on forums understand gold.

yes, indeed. I suppose my comments were aimed at those on hpc, rather than a wider base of people.

this poster has been following my interest in gold & inflation for quite some time, he has been very quiet lately until I posted a reply to him today. You mentioned name calling etc:

Mark Uttley I know this poster from my inner hpc days.

I am very interested in how people react/deal with these kind of things tbh as I think it represents (in its simplest form) why we are in this situation today, a total case of denial & head in the sand approach.

How much gold is in Fort Knox?

 

(31/03/09) Old clip but still interesting.

must have missed that the first time around, cheers.

Whenever the government or auditing regulatory bodies, don't/won't let audit or let independant auditors come in & count asset's, that should be a clear signal to everyone that there is a cover up. The problem is, that when everyone is constantly having their attention diverted by the media to look at celebs/afghanistan/iraq/who's wearing what (I put these completely diverse items together to highlight the ludicrousness of it all), then the populace not only don't ask these types of questions, they don't even know what the questions are to ask in the first place.

so they manipulate the most of the markets, bribe/buy off senior businessmen/political figures & control most of the media........how on earth can you realistically ever beat that ?

yes, there's that hope thingy, but surely realism outweighs hope ? I am not talking on an individual basis here but group think.

Interesting to see the usual jokey comments like "bury it in your garden/under your mattress" along with the other predictable phrases such as tinfoil hatters, shot guns and beans, mad max etc... You could almost make a game of anti gold-bug bingo.

 

The phrase 'goldbug' is a label and like all labels, it allows the person labeling to make out that differences are fundamentally at odds with those from the majority, a process called Antilocution or 'othering' as in other than us, not the same, different, abnormal, weirdo, nutjob, to be avoided.

 

 

 

 

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win " M.K Gandhi

 

They can't ignore us anymore, though I think in general we are still in the laughing phase at the moment, with just a few very vocal critics up for a fight.

interesting stuff enrieb.

I think using Ghandi's quote, we are at the beginning of the fight stage imo.

Using Allport's scale, I think we are at Scale 3 Discrimination, I think ??

What I am seeing is the people who have bought pm's appear to be very calm & willing to talk things through.

Oh dear, thanks.

he is intelligent though (although it pains me to say so) & understands a lot of what is going on, he just can't seem to link it all together imo.

I remember that name. What is his point of view?

total deflationist, dollar lover, stating that gold is basically useless:

check out from post 3

LOL. RealistBeasr thinks that gold is going to sub $300. What an idiot. The biggest financial cockup ever and he thinks that gold is going back to an even lower low (inflation adjusted) than Browns bottom. I dont know why he has such a problem about gold. He says he bought gold in the 70s and got out at $800, so he must have done well on it then.

there are so many posters who have pasted themselves into a corner now.......

for example, I think RedKharma at hpc knows he has made the wrong choice imo, but keeps digging his heels in deeper & deeper. Boy there are going to be a lot of red faces next year. You know what will happen though, 3 years of posting & they dissappear overnight when they are wrong & use the other usernames they have on the go.

There is a fundamental difference here though. Chinese are buying gold as they have been told to. Indians buy gold as thats ingrained within there psyche to buy gold with currency. This has always been the case since times immemorial. I do not see it changing. They however do not usually buy bullion. Its mostly in the form of jewellery.

Asians also, but perhaps Indians more??

my wife is a teacher in a school that is 70% asian. Just today she came back from work & told me this:

the children had an activity to do. If they were King or Queeen for the day, what would you do. She got these types of replies:

stay in bed all day, fly a private jet, shopping, give money to charity (that was a nice one), play playstation in bed...

then one asian lad said, I would buy some gold at 99.9%, he is seven years old. She said she got goose pimples all over when he said this.

I've been busy today having the tooth put back in my head that my son head butted out and trying to find a replacement car as the engine in mine can't be replaced until the beginning of October... Good day so far! However the POG/POS makes everything OK... I must admit, both gold and silver doing well IMO.

one of these?

You risk being arrested if you buy sulphuric acid and fertiliser.

 

Not worth it IMO.

+ 1 especially in Global Gordon's Owellian State.

I still refine small quantities of gold and silver although now only to produce metal that can be used in jewellery, most of this is just melt, assay, remedy and use. I still use some chemicals such as nitric but UK Health & Safety being what it is gets in the way of getting large enough quantities of nitric unless you have a fume hood, etc. We buy one later next year as may have a need for both a hood and the nitric.

 

Unless you know what you are doing with acids and the reactions from other materials then do yourself a favour and keep away. If you breathe in the fumes you can get your lungs burnt and they do not recover. There are some real killer chemical reactions as well, especially the cyanide ones.

 

It can be fun but it will never be as cheap as the big boys with their cyanide leech and electro-winning equipment.

your barbeque nights must be fun. :o

here's a wee anecdotal for one and all....

 

was at my local car boot on saturday and i bumped into a trader who deals in coins etc. I had bought 8 x vict. crowns of him a while back and asked 'hows things?', to which he replied he was fed up because he just couldn't source the coins like he used to.

 

today's pre 47 half crowns = tomorrows pre 1920 crowns and so on.....

I love a bit of good anecdotal double-agent.

I have noticed a couple of 'we buy your silver/gold at sh1t prices' stalls on the market now in Ossett, the nearest town to me.

Also the couple of times I walked past there (listening/loitering with Mrs GOM) & the one in the indoor market that has been there ages, we have noticed middle aged women selling what looked like family silver. One conversation I overheard at the indoor one, was a chavvy looking tatooed women about 40, selling a beautiful looking cigarette case (solid silver by the sounds of it), she said she wanted anough money for a night out or about £20, I kid you not.

Whilst said market stall owner was ooring & eering (7 muttering that it wasn't stamped) I piped in with 'if he doesn't want it I will buy it', he & his wife gave me a hard stare & said they definetely wanted to buy it. The wife then said 'can I help you then'.

sad & interesting at the same time about the woman selling the cigarette case though. Imagine what her children are going to be like ffs.

Hello. Can you deliver?

 

I'll have nos 15, 18; & why isn't there one between 19 & 20?

 

 

 

"THEY TRIED TO SELL US EGG FOO YOUNG"

no idea ?

perhaps no-one dared venture any opinion at all by then.