Kapouillax

As far as I understand, he's been long term bullish all along, but worrying about the short term outlook and risk, something most of us don't care (much) about. Nice hearing from you again

I can only agree on that statement.

Pocket money

Warpig, great info, thanks. Is there an "official" place where I could check that info; in fact, I'd like to know if owning bullion, through online bullions vaults or the actual physical thing is also CGT exempt. I keep seeing contradictory statements on that matter, which is annoying. Thanks!

Of course! Depends as well on how much you trust the fact that you'll be able to pay your mortgage without having to move home (that's my main problem, especially since it will mean my golden mattress will shrink almost to nothing in the process )

Yes, it's a calculation of how much you want to lose in renting over how much you want to lose in property price. At least you KNOW how much you are going to lose with renting I'm also looking for a property now (even placed a -rejected- offer today:)) and, interestingly, have been through exactly the same thought process as he has and coming to the same conclusions.

Yes! All of us are right! For different reasons. And with different goals. Okay, let's move on

No no, I was just referring to the temporary "beating the crap out of...". Surely that would tickle a bit B&Hers?? (Edit: even non-hardcore ones)

Hence my quotes

You're being unfair, warpig. Whatever Bubb may in essence say, is to be prepared. The "method" is just not to put all your eggs in the same basket. As far as I know, the current paper trading system didn't blow up and is not 100% guaranteed to. As far as I know, the gold isn't 100% sure of losing its intrinsic value wrt fiat money. We may see either, or a range of possibility in between. I think owning physical and paper counterparts to hedge their value *in case* doesn't mean you sell all your physical (in fact it's up to you as to how much you want to retain). And it could mean you can get more physical as you build up. And either way it goes, you can retain some of the benefit. But that's just my view, and I think DrBubb to have opened my mind to these tools. By going 100% one direction, you take a gamble. You may be right. Or not. DrBubb warns you take risks. People take offense at the "evil trader" who uses the corrupted system. DrBubb also sometimes gets a bit "enthusiastic" and provokes (cf. renaming beating buy and hold thread) DrBubb also has a view that could be disconnected from our realities. In fact, we all have a different experience of life and have different needs. Pure B&H for some, pure trading for others, and a mix of those to those who think it makes sense....

Indeed, in your situation owning GLD certainly is better than owning physical, but, for instance, in mine as a UK resident, physical is a better option (at least, in the perspective of owning it long term...)

Thanks Neel, that looks very interesting! Edit: thanks to your pointer, I've also found those: - PHGP - PHSP

In UK at least, physical gold ownership seems to me like more tax efficient. Also, holding GLD when you live in GBP means you're depending on the USD <=> GBP exchange. That's why I "hold" physical in GM and BV. But, probably there are a lot of things I don't know about, so what would you do, DrBubb, if you wanted to hold gold but were living in GBP?

I wish my area was going down like GU1 does : Prices in Fleet. (allegedly, they started much higher and the soufflé is deflating to normalise)

Yes. 25%-30% would be pretty much all my savings in, hence why I'm hesitating.

You're right JL, that's my line of thinking. I'm also thinking about how much interest rates are likely to raise in the next 5 years... Perhaps enormously, but then that means inflation has kicked in and the PM pot will help probably more in that situation than a fixed interest rate mortgage... The political will is to favour assets in detriment of savings, regardless of the cost. Let's not disappoint them, then, and have the largest safety net possible in case the rulers' strategy didn't quite work out as expected (which is to be expected )

Yes, unfortunately I can't do both If I go for a long term fixed, the deposit would engulf all my savings... in an asset that's got a strong risk of depreciation (be it nominal or through inflation)... Mmmmh!

It sounds that indeed sellers in nice areas can afford to hold on to their properties. And they probably will for a long time as long as interest rates will keep down, which sounds likely to hold for a few years. So, house prices will keep their nominal values : what is going to give then? That's the question I have to be asking myself. as I will soon be "forced" to buy by SWMBO. I can see two radically opposed strategies: - Put the smallest deposit I possibly can and ride on inflation through acquisition of inflating assets and benefit from low interest rates as long as they last. - Go all in, losing pretty much all my financial cushion in a big deposit, but get a 10 years fixed rate mortgage which will allow us to be shielded against sudden surges in IR. In both case, buying a property worse than what I can afford to rent. Lose/lose situation each with their own risks

No need to : http://our.windowfarms.org/ (Ok, you may not quite be self sufficient from that ) Edit : Found that also, which is possibly more useful : http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Hydroponics

Well, there's a twist. The essence of those "theories" is that they are, by definition not verifiable by their intricate secrecy: - Mysterious and super powerful secret societies that control the world so well nobody can possibly know about them. - Covert ops operations of nation X to support event Y. (CIA blowing up the twin towers) - Shy fairies that will hide if there's any chance for them to be spotted. (No, I will not make any mention of religion ) Do you have any factual evidence against the existence of invisible fairies? I don't!

And store the bullions!

I lived in one of those during all my childhood/young adulthood. 4m (okay, 3.7m) high ceilings! Certainly felt better than the average British new build

I thought you'd do I'm merely just putting things into balance. I think you guys are all (mostly) right in your own way, and have different goals. All bets are off as to what happens if the whole system collapses. I don't physically hold my physical gold/silver and let GM/BV do the risky work for me. I understand there are risks with that as well. I have some cash, in various currencies, in different countries, as well. I don't own a house (yet... resisting as long as I can my wife's constant pressure), so I can move (and probably will). There's certainly more I can do, I'm sure. I can certainly spend my whole life planning survival strategies. In the meantime, I'll try to implement various strategies with your guidance, DrBubb, and others' on this forum. I have to reiterate how grateful I am for the advice, by the way.

Take this with a pinch of salt as I clearly don't claim to be an expert, but: - Short term timescale : in the next weeks, after the Euro zone finds a (temporary) resolve. I'm hoping for a nice big chunk of money print... Well, hoping, and not. Hoping for the immediate sake of Gold's price, not hoping for the actual medium term (economic) consequences. - Medium term timescale : in the next year to 2 years. Depending on what will be decided in the next days/weeks, what will happen? I expect, if more printing, we'll have another big bounce for Au (and Ag), possibly leading to the final exponential blowout. Otherwise, I expect we'll have a strong(er) risk of entering a bear market for gold (so I'll be watching out for that and change my investing strategy...). - Long term, is 20-30 years time, who knows, but I expect Au will have appreciated. That said, earth might be a barren rock by then, so we'd have maybe other things to worry about But for the timescale you consider (5 years), I have the vague intuition that the actual price of Au at that time will be down from where we are now (re: my medium term view). Now, that's considering we somehow keep the current economic system we have now, hence why I also have a safeguarding proportion of physical Au that I try to grow. So that's why I've split up my pool of money, attributing the proportions of each to the chance I see scenario X happening.

Actually I was hypothesing the (probably impossible) loss to physical gold down to, say, 500$... Some long term B&H might still be in the money... I completely agree with you about how crazy one would be to see one's profit disappear without acting, but I was just pointing out that it might not matter so much to some long term b&h'ers who may also view it purely as an "insurance fund" for if/when the financial system collapses. I suppose that, it depends also on what use you have of it. In your case, it's your main source of income (trading, in general, i'm assuming), for others, it's a lump of money they save "in case the excrements hit the propeller". I can understand both views. I'm personally sitting in-between as I have some medium term goals for the money (so, I have to maximise its value), but I also want to keep a proportion of physical as core holding. I don't see both views as mutually exclusive, and, in fact, I split my holdings in two chunks, one purely B&H, and the other where I try to follow your "beating B&H" advice strategy (or, at least, a UK-tax-and-currency-friendly proxy equivalent). (going 100% certain 100% hardcore B&H sound crazy to me, but who am I to know )