Marchas45, Some folks like the wild ride, others like more stability. All this talk about Barclays, LIBOR and derivatives is interesting but misses the point. Gold is just another commodity...prices are subject to supply and demand..Many people have lost millions speculating on the yellow metal. I see a more educated consumer..and gold simply lacks luster in today's market.
Sorry Cappy, but people following your advice (sell and hope to buy back cheaper, later) have probably lost much more in the PM game in the past 11 years than the buy and hold crowd. Gold has gone from 250 to 1900 in the past 11 years. Unless someone started buying at above 1600, then they are still ahead of the game right now. If someone waited that long to get into PMs during this past 11 year bull market, then they probably aren't a true PM bug anyway and probably don't mess with forums like this, not that it matters.
Most likely such a late comer to the PM markets was following someone's advice to "jump in" while the market was going up fast (as it was from between 1600 to 1900), what I like to call the buy high and sell low folks. I have known such people and they always complain and whine about PMs (or whatever the investment being talked about is) and say how they are going to crash, but when they get hot and go up such folks quietly go and buy hoping to not miss the train and then when there is a correction they get scared and sell and the whine and complain cycle for them starts again. And yes, if/when it goes up again, they will buy in again if they can.
Taking a chance on selling one's stash now to buy back at a mere 15% discount (your numbers based on the 1400 figure you predict and today's price of approx 1600, not even taking into account buy/sell premiums which always go in favor of the coin dealer) has a low risk/reward ratio. Thus, if something big happens in the world like an Iran war, etc, after someone has taken your advice but before they buy back in, then they are out of luck. Such big events usually seem to happen overnight without much warning so they are hard to predict exactly when they will take place.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but looking at history, the smart buys happen when the crowd so to speak is poo pooing something, but the smart folks see value and buy early.
And gold is not just another commodity like copper, aluminum, etc. At least for the past 5000 years gold and silver were money. Yes supply and demand are factors, just like with anything, including paper investments. But gold and silver do and have operated independently with respect to industrial and commercial factors that normal commodities are affected by. Maybe this will all change in the next few years, but I doubt it.
I hope we are all on this site this fall/winter and we can all see who is correct about all the predictions. I have been wrong about the PMs direction in the past year and can admit to that. But said price decrease has allowed me to continue adding to the stash at levels I could only have wished for back when I was watching silver climb to near 50 and wishing I had not stopped buying at 20. Also, there has been market manipulation via the paper PM markets holding back PMs (this has even been acknowledged by some of the CNBC commentators just recently, let alone all of the PM bug commentators) which will one day end for various reasons too long to get into in this thread.
All just my opinion.
Jim
