kkeegan123

Hmmm, interesting thought wanderer. My broker allows hedging with the above technique, but Id5 is right, the strategy is fraught with danger. Your strategy is normally utilised just prior to a news release in order to catch the action and quickly close out the losing trade or at the end of a wedge formation perhaps. I'm not convinced that any move by silver will be so dramatic that you couldn't exit the losing trade manually. Using buy/sell limits is safer, as Id5 suggests. Nonetheless, I am sufficiently intriqued. I believe the technique warrants closer inspection and I have time on my hands. Perhaps, with the combined FX knowledge of GEI posters, a reworked strategy could be developed. Incidently, could anyone tell me if it's generally true that gold leads silver in an uptrend and silver leads gold in a downtrend or is it all about fundamentals? JL

Hi CVP, I always use the checklist below before opening a swing trade, although I am a day trader at heart. * What stage is this stock in? * Is this stock in and uptrend or a downtrend? * Is the stock at the beginning, middle, or end of the trend? * How strong is the trend? * Where are the trend lines? * What wave is this stock in? * What do the moving averages tell me? * Was there a breakout recently? * Is the chart "smooth" or "sloppy"? * Are there any chart patterns? * Are there wide range candles in the direction of the trend? * Are there any gaps in the direction of the trend? * Are professionals selling strength or buying weakness? * Where are the support and resistance areas? * Is this stock at a Fibonacci level? * What does volume tell me? You could consider opening 2 long trades at $10 a pip with a tight initial stop loss on one position but not on the other in case the market turns in your favour after an initial fall. Move both stops up to your start price asap for two free trades and then set a 50 or 100 pip t/s on one of the trades and let the other one ride. Then again I trade Pm and currency movements through my Forex broker and I guess CFD trading is probably different, so none of the above may apply. Tax free though, if I remember rightly. Good luck anyhow. JL

Do you know, the strangest thing is the thought didn't even enter my head. I just stood and watched from the kitchen, totally bemused as they popped through the letterbox one at a time and formed a heap on the mat.

And to think, I hesitated...

I felt a bit sorry for my local postie when my Sarnia deliveries arrived. She looked rather miffed at all the seperate packages , seemed like she was shoveling them through the letterbox for ages. Out of sympathy I think I'll limit my orders to 20 items or less in the future.

Thankyou for taking the time and effort to post this interesting reply.

Yes, my thoughts exactly and the way we're going probably won't be long.

A quick word of recommendation for SarniaSilver. I placed an order for multiple different items on Thursday and my order arrived this morning. 100% present and correct. First impressions - very impressed.

Hi Jake, would you sell either partially or wholly at these levels, assuming that your personal/financial situation remains more or less unchanged? The reason I ask is that I am concerned about my lack of a short-term exit strategy. I am psychologically prepared for a long hold and a steady price rise over the course of many years. I have always assumed that I will have plenty of time to plan my sales etc...easy, but what if the scenario we have all planned for doesn't happen. Instead, the price explodes very quickly to these levels, almost overnight. Where does that leave our meticulously planned exit strategies?

Pixel8r, embarrassing question from the back of the class but, I'm sure I read somewhere that the big commercial shorts can leave their positions open almost ad-infinitum. Why would they be in a panic to cover them now? Note to self - Try and pay attention.

Tried to buy some back on the 11th Nov from Sarnia but my order couldn't be filled because they only had 7 left. Went to CID and got brits and eagles instead.

Interestingly, my FX broker are offering increased leverage on PM trading. Dear Client, As part of our commitment to delivering the best possible trading terms to our clients, we have introduced floating leverage for clients trading Gold and Silver. As of Monday, 28th September 2009, margin requirements on open positions have been reduced to 1% for the first 20 lots of an open position, 2% for the next 30 lots (between 20.1 and 50 inclusive) and 5% on any amount above 50 lots. For hedged positions we now require half of the normal margin requirement for each side. Floating leverage for precious metals 1% 2% 5% Gold ≤20 lots 20.1 - 50 lots >50 lots Silver ≤20 lots 20.1 - 50 lots >50 lots For an example, please refer to our company news article located here. Please note that due to the closure of Globex between the hours of 23:15 and 00:00 (23:15–00:00 MT4 time), Alpari (UK) will disable trading of precious metals each evening between these times. Regards, Alpari (UK) BTW, I would like to thank all of you for the quality of your posts and your tolerance to newbies. JL

Informative post Jake, thanks. Lots of food for thought.

Exactly what I was thinking. Feels nice to have gold in strong hands doesn't it.

Well, it didn't exactly fly...actually it got a good $10 kicking as usual, but has retraced back to $993 from $986 in less than an hour. Edit - now $996 almost fully retraced....good performance for gold.

True Jake, anyone who makes it their business to know the facts has confidence issues with sterling and fiat, but at the moment, the masses think everything is hunkydory and are happily converting their "unwanted" PM's into fiat. As buyers of PM's, I think we will remain "nutters" for a while yet. In a post sterling collapse environment the price of gold will be prohibitively expensive and silver will be the affordable PM investment vehicle of choice for the masses. BTW, I would be interested to know what the generally accepted definition of a S hitting TF scenario might be? Are we talking about sterling collapse and/or civil unrest, societal and/or basic infrastructure collapse or massive global confidence erosion in fiat currency? Are Icelanders living through a SHTF scenario? Just curious, as well as just learning.

Securing bullion at the best possible price has been my primary goal for a long time, but I am always considering my exit strategy. Like all of us, I am trying to position myself favourably for a myriad of possible future scenarios. One of which could well be the SHTF and in which case we are holding bullion and hopefully protected. I am also thinking that a scenario could emerge whereby SHTF is avoided, but peoples confidence in fiat is significantly eroded due to a single/sequence of severe but temporary shocks to the monetary system and the price of PM's has risen considerably but not exploded. Life goes on, people are scared, the internet is still working, CiD still buy and sell PM's and the holding of physical PM's is not commonplace but crucially, the fundamentals of gold and silver are understood by many. In this environment, I can envisage a strong market developing for high quality and unusual investment pieces for long term holding. Meanwhile, I would be holding onto my core bullion to hedge against further shocks, but would offload investment pieces into the marketplace probably using a popular internet auction site.

Interesting that you should mention resisting serious collecting, Jake. I was browsing Chards website earlier and although not what I would consider serious collecting, I do really like some of their medallic art collections and commemorative kilo coins. 2005 Alderney Battle of Trafalgar silver proof kilo coin here; http://24carat.co.uk/2005alderneytrafalgarsilverrkilo.html (Interesting quoted ad from Ebay) and the 2002 Alderney Golden Jubilee Fifty Pound Silver Proof Kilo Coin with Selective Gold Plating here; http://24carat.co.uk/2002alderneygoldenjub...silverkilo.html Contacted Chards to check price and availability, both in stock but the price is now £545 each and not £495. Quite a hefty premium, about £100 p/kg more than a standard 1kg silver coin, but I'm getting bored with accumulating 1 oz maples, eagles, pandas and the like. They are nice coins but you can only admire them for so long. I just feel it would be great to see something "special" nestling amongst the usual stuff in my stash.

Although I understand the allure of PM's as a wealth preserver/haven, I am having difficulty deciding what the primary driving force for the current rally in PM's might be. Is the main driver the weakness of the dollar, underlying fundamentals or the Chinese influence. I feel unable to make an informed decision on whether or not to increase my exposure to PM's at this juncture. I always buy on the dips but can't help feeling that I may be waiting along time for a good buying opportunity, especially when considering GBP's fragility. Hmmm... to buy or not to buy

Thanks id5, I've decided that using the chemical process of purification may be one tinker too far. However, can't get the idea out of my head now. I was wondering if you could offer your thoughts on the two devices (Simplicity and electrolytic thumb cell) marketed here, http://shorinternational.com/refining.htm They claim that the Simplicity can run 1 kg batch weights and can be used for gold and platinum. Are you familiar with the refining process that the Simplicity utilises and whether it would be possible to bodge a "home-made" version at a fraction of the cost?

Thanks for the warnings with regards to working with acids in your previous post. I am planning to follow the procedure outlined here; http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=732873 and using broken and old silver jewellery donated by my wife. I appreciate that the cost of materials will probably outweigh any potential profit from purifying the silver, but I just enjoy tinkering in the garden shed. Having said that, it sounds as though I would be well advised to undertake my experiments in the open air and upwind. Hope I don't gas the neighbours...

Not really sure about the circuit boards Azazel, but from research to date, I would suggest that the nitric acid will dissolve not only the silver, but solder and most other components. I was planning to use some old jewellery that the wife won't miss. All sterling silver (92.5 %) purity. Looking forward to getting started, will let you know how it goes.....

Hi all, I have recently cleared out the garden shed and quite fancy the idea of setting up a mini silver refining "shed project". http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=732873 I have loads of scrap silver and thought it may be interesting to have a go at making my own bars. The wife thinks I'm mad, but has anyone else tried refining silver. Graphite molds in a variety of sizes are cheap enough to buy and although the process of refining appears quite complicated, I could have multiple stages of the process on the go at the same time. Thought it could be a interesting hobby-type project, obviously, with due dilligence to health and safety aspects. Am I mad?