Welcome to the official Gold, Commodity, Alternative Currency and Physical Asset Investment thread. This thread has been created for discussion on the topic of alternative investment strategies.

For those interested as to why this thread exists and how you can use it, read this.

Hopefully with contributions from some regulars, this thread will show people HOW they can invest in precious metals, physical assets, and can detail WHY this will keep them out of the incoming economic apocalypse. If anyone wants to draw up a better OP with more information, let me know. I'd even love it if a regular would love to write up his complete investment strategy and how he did it, it should generate some interesting discussion.

To begin the discussion; Gold at $900+, time to buy, or time to wait?

Thanks for the push for this thread. I am not smart enough to have an good opinion on $900 gold but I will use the thread to ask my questions.


I am interested in investing in precious metals. the concept of physical things is more my thing( I invest in real estate and have a business).

There is so much to take in with metals.

First where to get it. I have found some good sites but what am I looking for? How much juice can I expect to pay for the service?

How much can I expect for delivery?

Precious metals are a big hedge against hyperinflation so what happens when we are in that situation and now I need to cash in my metals to put food on the table? Am I always going to be able to find someone to give me the going rate in a reasonable time?

If I put it in my IRA how much can I expect to pay in a custodial/storage fee?

What is the best form to buy it in? Do coins vs bars have their own advantage and disdvantage?

What about SLV and GLD in paper? Are they legit? Do they have the actual metal somewhere that is verifiable? Do they have risks of going under and going bankrupt or is it really just an easy way to buy metals? Seems too good to be true.

Thanks to anyone that can help me with any of these questions.

AC Ghetto.

I've been thinking of buying Aluminum.

Just look at its sick 5 year graph downswong.


http://www.indexmundi.com/commoditie...inum&months=60

Well, virtually all of the commodities are that way. I'm thinking barley, myself. Beer and bread - the demand will never end!

http://www.indexmundi.com/commoditie...rley&months=60

I like gold, but I also especially like silver.


Is there any place to buy gold bullion? Everywhere seems to be sold out now.

i was thinking of having a portfolio of:

25% mixed currencies via www.citibank.co.uk (way too late getting out of GBP but might as well protect myself)

25% global growth equity fund (generally conservative)

25% precious metals etf and gold mining funds (ideally id get some physical but not sure if id prefer to buy a gun to shoot myself if the world got so bad i had to rely on physical gold).

25% all commodities etf fund (generally conservative)

just want to protect my money against GBP falls and longer term inflation. hopefully this should do the trick!

Anyone backing up the truck for soft commodities .... say into DBA or ETF of choice?

Conflicting info out of China .... 1 article says "worst drought in 50 years" another 1 says "lol tricked u crops r ok"

I have a belief that the Japanese Yen will be strong over the next 24 months

Am I crazy?
What is the best way to act upon this belief?

Buy yen?

Some of the major gold miners (Barrick, Newmont, Goldcorp etc) report 4Q and annual earnings next week.

It will be interesting to see how the decline in oil prices and strengthening dollar impacted their bottom lines.

Oil can be a significant cost of mining, depending on the type of mine. When gold went to $1030 in March, oil was ~$100.

Now, instead of a 10:1 oil/gold ratio, we have a 25:1 ratio. An ounce of gold buys a lot more oil today than it did 11 months ago. This change in the oil:gold trend really started in 4Q, which is one reason why the earnings reports will be interesting.

Further, many of these miners pay their mining costs in local currency, but receive dollars for their product. The dollar rallied in 4Q against most currencies. This too should impact earnings favorably.

Brons
adept

Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Netherlands, ldo
Posts: 1,151

Re: Golds bugs, commodity investors, and general anarchists, read this!

Thanks ArturiusX for this thread. I was really getting sick of people advising gold as an investment for someone with 10k to invest. Now the goldbugs can still discuss their asset allocation while leaving the more traditional allocators alone.

***************
Hey Brons. What are you doing in the goldbug thread? Go play in the big unrestricted sandbox of "tradtional" investment BFI postings (as if gold isn't traditional).

Unless . . . I got it! You secretly know in your heart of hearts that you need to buy some gold!!

Buy yen-CDs thru Everbank or similar.

No, you are not crazy. You should have had the idea at 110, and then again at 110 more recently tho.

Within the general rules of the forum, I'll post where I want when I want about what I want.

If you don't like it, ban me. See if I care.

ArturiusX never said that if you're not a gold bug you can't post in this thread. And fwiw I only gave an answer to his post so stfu please.

Does anyone have a historical graph depicting the overal supply of gold? How precious is gold anyways? Gold is almost never destroyed and miners keep on mining it. Are we headed for a gold bubble?

Isn't oil a much better play? Oil supplies aren't getting larger and we all need it on a daily basis. Will oil outpeform other commodities when the results of the government's policy of printing of money comes to a head?

And finally, why do you think Jim Rogers is against the Euro? It seems like a great currency because it's very hard for all of these EU nations to agree on one single monetary policy therefore there will be less intervention than other currencies.

hey, if you want to turn this thread into a flamefest, you can't say you weren't the one who started it

John, if you want to diversify out of GBP why don't you just own foreign equities. You know, an asset with a positive expected return instead of the 0 real return from currencies.

Also, when are you going to give up on this commodities Jim Rogers 20 year bull market bull****? How down does oil have to be from it's all time high for you to accept that commodities have a zero expected real return?

Your a young guy, equities are down 40% from their highs so why are you not partaking in the equity risk premium?

I think it's a shame the mods want to keep all the silver bugs out of the threads of people asking for advice, since they would get much better advice from silver bugs than all of the donkeys advising people to buy real estate , treasury bills, and the stock market ( 3 of the biggest ponzi schemes I have ever seen ). Many people in this thread believe we will see the housing bubble, treasury bubble, US dollar bubble, US stock market bubble ALL violently collapse in the next few years. Even if you don't see these events as an inevitability, I truly hope you will at least strongly consider them as a possibility. I think it's a shame that these stock market perma bulls and real estate perma bulls are allowed to post in our threads, but we're not allowed to post in their threads. I think the mods are really starting down a slippery slope here, and I hope they will make sure to give everyone posting in this thread extra leeway. And I hope every poster in this thread will give every other poster in this thread leeway, even if they want to talk about something off topic. This should be an unregulated thread where there is still free speech and we can post nearly anything we want to. WE CAN POLICE OURSELVES. I'm sure at least 80%+++ of the forum had mediate on ignore in his heyday, I sure did. If someone really posts messed up items we will argue with them or ignore them etc until they leave. Go get a hobby... is modding some internet forum going to look good on your resume, or do you just like the power trip?

Personally I would recommend storing up on heirloom seeds and some long term food storage before I worried about any other investment. It's important to have a good base of food, water, seed and gardening items in my opinion. Even if you can't afford a big house, or 1000 shares of Microsoft or 10 pounds of platinum thats okay. You can't afford to not have food and water available to you if at all possible. I see the heirloom vegetable seeds I have, and the 2 years of food I have stored up as insurance against the unthinkable. We live in crazy times and sure I like 50,000$ sports cars and going to the superbowl game and going out to the bar as much as the next person but I think now is really the time to buckle down and cut out anything that isn't necessary.

I believe silver is significantly cheaper than gold, I believe the Silver : Gold ratio will be 20:1 within 6-7 years if not much sooner. I also believe we are about to see the biggest bull market in commodities that we have seen in at least 100 years, if not much longer. I think the risk : reward ratio on silver is utterly ridiculous right now. I think silver will end this year at $22-27 conservatively, and possibly significantly higher.

If the above is Binions new gimmick account it is still dumb. Could be another Politard though since he likes the word Ponzi, hard to tell.

I will try to answer more of your questions later. These are just my opinions, take with a grain of salt...

> My advice on what to buy :

50 x 10 oz silver bars
500 x 1 oz silver bars
5 x 100 oz silver bars
5 oz of small denomination platinum
500 oz more silver, maybe junk.
5 oz platinum ""
3 oz gold ""
>repeat again from beginning

Buy whatever seems like a good value to you at the time. The more recognized the item, the more liquid, and the more expensive.

IE some random 1 oz silver coin might cost $14.50 but if you want an ASE it's probably $17... but ou will get most of it back when you sell. The longer you're planning to hold, the less I'd be worried about this. That said, I would try to make sure some of the bigger silver bars are comex deliverable ie JMatthley Engelhart etc. I'd also probably pay the premium for some ASE, Maple or Philharmonic silver coins, silver is silver though so don't worry about it too much any silver is really fairly liquid, some brands are just worth more than others, and more recognized.
>
There's a list of a few dealers in one of the older gold threads I believe...
Fractional denominations of platinum and gold are going to cost significantly more than full ounce coins. I think it's worth having at least a few oz worth of smaller denominations but can't fault you for wanting to save money and buy 1 ozers...

FOR EXAMPLE**
1 oz gold ASE might be 960
1/2 oz is 500
1/4 oz is $260
1/10 oz is 110


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SLV is AUDITED BY THE SAME PEOPLE WHO AUDITED ENRON. THERE IS NOTHING THERE, IT IS A HUGE HUGE PONZI SCHEME. AVOID PAPER ASSETS LIKE THE PLAGUE. Also SLV is owned by Barclays so you will lose all of your imaginary money that isn't even there to begin with if / when Barclays goes bankrupt. Have you ever heard the saying "If you don't hold it, you don't own it." ??

I'm not sure about the IRA question but I would seriously consider cashing out your IRA, it's worth a huge penalty if it allows you to get your hands on more physical assets. I would highly recommend you seek more advice before making any decisions wrt your IRA, or any other investment for that matter. Think about what makes sense. There's a lot to consider with the metals, but in another sense this investment is elegant in its simplicity. People aren't used to having to actually physically take responsibility for their own property because they're used to owning digits on a screen.

In my humble opinion, if you bought this portfolio, and then went into a coma for 3 years, and woke up, it would be worth absolutely zero dollars, zilch, nada. I would highly recommend you pick up a few physical assets before you even consider gambling in the paper markets.

Also I could tell right away that a non-silver bug made this thread. Most silver bugs I have talked to have 3-10x as much money in silver than gold. If a real gold bug made this thread, the title would have s ilver in it and not gold.

Lets say you had a gun to a gold bug's head and told him he was only allowed to own gold OR silver, but NOT both and he had to "give one up" for the rest of his life. I believe about 99/100 would choose to only be allowed to own silver. And the 1 guy who chooses gold is the stupidest out of those 100 people by a long shot. Yet we have to be labeled "gold bugs" by the media instead of "silver bugs" because GOD FORBID A LOT OF MONEY FLOWS INTO SILVER instead of GOLD, that could lead to disasters of epic proportions.

As a betting man. -2000 for Meditate.

You had a $250 target earlier this week. What happened?

If you want to bet on silver ending the year at $25, I'll give you 3:1.

Thremp, book me for 10 large on the -2000.

Wow that is a freaking hefty target for one year out... I don't remember making that big a prediction... are you sure the prediction wasn't for 5 years out or something? Can you quote my post?

Is this bet you are proposing your 3 ounces of silver vs my one ounce of silver? Because if that is the case I would like to make a SMALL bet. If you're proposing 3 US dollars against my 1 US dollar, I DO NOT WANT to bet. How would we determine the price of silver. For example, let's say the paper price of silver is being quoted @ 21$ an ounce but apmex.com is offering $27 on the buy side an ounce and selling for 31$ an ounce... but the paper price is only $21 per ounce , but there's absolutely no physical silver at all available under $28 an ounce anywhere and most of it is 30+, can only find some really crap scrap silver @ 28/oz... who wins the bet?

Also I would like to propose a rule that all prop bets offered in this thread are made w real money... I guarantee you no gold bug is going to bet you with USTP anyways... save your time; don't even bother to offer bets. As far as I'm concerned, if we're going to bet US dollars, we might as well bet with sheets of toilet paper instead.