Shortened to PM, usually. Anyone have much experience buying/selling gold/silver/platinum/palladium? If so, where did you buy? I know many people use online sources like Kitco and Apmex. Others prefer local stores as to avoid paying for shipping. I'm not sure how much above spot local stores usually sell for, though.

Basically, I've got some cash saved and I'm not really looking to hold onto it. I'm especially interested in gold as a hedge against inflation. Feel free to give advice/share your experience/etc ITT.

10/27/2009 3:45:05 PM

Kitco is pretty good. Depends on how much cash you have. If you want to physically have the metals in hand, then that is the way to go. Otherwise you could always look in the one of the ETFs.

10/27/2009 3:49:02 PM

10/27/2009 4:14:58 PM

fucking serious?

10/27/2009 4:37:25 PM

Warren Buffett:

Quote :

"[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."

Obviously gold has industrial applications, but I've always liked this quote when it comes to gold as a financial instrument.

10/27/2009 6:51:42 PM

I'm not Jewish if that's what you are referring to.

10/27/2009 6:59:09 PM

^^Yeah, I understand the point. The value of gold is that there's a very limited amount of it, though. Sure, mining might yield some more, but it won't be much compared to what's already out there. The fact that people of all societies view gold as something of value is what makes it good.

10/27/2009 7:08:44 PM

Its value lies in the fact that it's fucking valuable.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 7:10 PM. Reason : .]

10/27/2009 7:09:51 PM

I've used northwest territorial mint. Kitco didn't ship the bars I wanted to the US and they had/have a low premium compared to everyone else. I was pretty happy with the NWTM and the service. I haven't sold any back to them but they give you the gold price that day when you sell back to them.

10/27/2009 10:38:21 PM

right now the price is way too high. you should be selling your gold. it is a shitty time to buy. I guess I don't buy bullion, but I have alot of stock from making jewelry.

10/28/2009 12:40:54 AM

^I wouldn't say it's too high, but there's probably going to be a pullback before gold jumps to new highs. I'm hoping to buy when that pullback brings gold to 950-975 (perhaps lower) in November. I just want to be prepared when that time comes.

But, frankly, I don't view gold as an investment. I view it as a way to preserve my money. If you keep your money in the bank, you're guaranteed to lose money to inflation over the next years. Stocks are a gamble. Gold, despite the fact that many people think it isn't that valuable, has maintained value for thousands of years. It's not just going to become worthless. Dollars don't carry that same guarantee. I think there will probably be a pullback/deflationary period coming up, but in the long-run, there is going to be substantial inflation...not necessarily hyperinflation, though. It all depends on how fast Ben cranks out the dollars in an attempt to avoid the deflation bogeyman.

10/28/2009 10:54:26 AM

Quote :

"Its value lies in the fact that it's fucking valuable."

Yes, but that value has withstood the test of time unlike just about everything else. You can bury gold in your backyard and come back to it 30 years later if you need to and it'll be just as good as it was when you buried it.

10/28/2009 1:12:14 PM

Gold has been hovering above 1100 since the market opened yesterday. Kind of makes me wish I had bought when it was at 1030 not that long ago. A lot of people are expecting a correction back down to 1000 or lower in the next month. I obviously would prefer to buy on a dip, but gold has been steadily going up for a couple weeks now, so there hasn't been that kind of opportunity.

I've also had some interest in silver. A gold coin will run you 1200 dollars or so, but a silver coin might only be 20 dollars. Having your money in smaller amounts could be useful if there came a time when you needed to actually trade your physical bullion for goods/FRN.

11/10/2009 4:00:19 PM

Quote :

"I wouldn't say it's too high,"

yeah it is



20 year chart.... it's really fucking high right now which is a aberration, not a norm

the last time if was even close to today's prices was in 1980 (another oil 'crisis')

[Edited on November 10, 2009 at 4:10 PM. Reason : s]

11/10/2009 4:07:44 PM

Silver is too bulky IMO.

Someone mentioned to me yesterday that gold is closing in on the price of platinum right now. I haven't personally checked the numbers, but if that's true then it's a pretty good indication of how lopsided the market is right now.

I think it would be foolish to buy gold today. I mean, you might do well to buy it today and sell it in a week; but I wouldn't get caught holding it for any period of time. The people who are buying it are also probably the same people who were buying houses they couldn't afford three years ago and couldn't get enough overpriced tech stocks a decade ago. There is a difference between "buy high and sell higher" and buying something that is obviously over-inflated. Somebody is going to be stuck when it crashes. Is it going to be you?

[Edited on November 10, 2009 at 4:10 PM. Reason : l]

11/10/2009 4:09:30 PM

plat is at mid 1300's
gold is at low 1100's
silver is ~17

gold and plat prices at this level are almost indistinguishable (~10%) recently it was even closer less than 100 an ounce difference...

[Edited on November 10, 2009 at 4:16 PM. Reason : s]

11/10/2009 4:12:31 PM

Quote :

"before gold jumps to new highs."

I remember hearing statements like this when the DOW as at 14000 about two years ago.
And when Corning, Nortel, Covad, had stock prices over $100 in 2000.
And when people on TWW were talking about it being a good time to start flipping houses in 2006.

[Edited on November 10, 2009 at 4:19 PM. Reason : a]

11/10/2009 4:18:59 PM

^^^^That's looking at the price of gold in USD. The value of the dollar has changed over the years. If you look at the price of gold adjusted for inflation, or at the price of gold in terms of oil or some other commodity, you can see that the price has been much more stable. Sure, it peaks at certain points, but it hasn't been nearly as much of a fluctuation as your chart would suggest.

The price of gold might be a little too high due to speculation, which is why I think there will be a correction or "pullback." A lot of the gains in gold are due to weakening of the dollar, though. Kitco even has an index on their frontpage that shows how much gold gains/losses are due to buying/selling or dollar strength/weakness. I don't see gold plummeting to early 2000-2002 levels anytime soon, though. There is, very clearly, inflationary activity going on right now.

^^^I agree that buying gold is a bad idea right now. I don't think that holding gold is a bad idea, though. In five years, you will almost certainly have preserved much more of your wealth than if you had held dollars for the entire time.

^I don't think it's at all similar. Gold is something that the entire world recognizes as valuable. The housing market was entirely different; people thought houses would continue to appreciate in value forever, but not because of inflation. There was this attitude that houses were becoming more valuable, but they weren't. They had the same or lower values over time, and speculation was driving the price up.

The same goes for the tech bubble and the stock market. You had companies that were worth a lot on paper, but they weren't actually producing anything. Those tech companies weren't worth anything, but people thought they were going to take off. They didn't, and a lot of people lost money.

Gold is a very different situation. Sure, you're going to have times where people are worried about inflation, which drives up demand for gold. The price goes up. But, like I mentioned, a lot of the "increased value" of gold is not actually increased value, it's a reflection on the declining dollar. That's why I say gold shouldn't be viewed as investment, but as insurance. Regardless of any fluctuations in USD price, you'll be able to take your gold to another country and buy things of real value.

[Edited on November 10, 2009 at 4:36 PM. Reason : ]

11/10/2009 4:19:32 PM

Quote :

"^^^I agree that buying gold is a bad idea right now. I don't think that holding gold is a bad idea, though. In five years, you will almost certainly have preserved much more of your wealth than if you had held dollars for the entire time."

We'll see about that.
God isn't making any more land gold, right?

11/10/2009 5:14:23 PM

Generally people who dismiss gold don't seem to understand its place. Its been in a tremendous bull market the last 8 years or so particularly as bush and obama enacted weak dollar policy. I wouldn't look for gold to fall hard in the near future and I will wait until the fed is close to raising interest rates before I consider selling my position. Drudge has a link to an article about peak gold and central banks are net buyers right now. Combine that with the cheap and easy access to gold thru the GLD ETF and I think its silly not to keep at least 5 pct of your portfolio in gold for its diversification purposes

11/12/2009 10:19:21 AM

I pushed gold pretty hard about 4 years ago.

now that my maid is talking about buying it, you know it's well past a worthy investment. The challenge is finding the next rapid growth investment vehicle (aka bubble).

11/12/2009 10:35:37 AM

If you bought gold four years ago, you'd be in pretty good shape. The problem is that you view (or viewed) gold as an investment, when that's not the point of gold. It's a hedge against inflation. If we have inflation, and we are having it, what do you think will happen to the price of gold? You think it's just going to become less valuable, even though there are gold shortages, and every central bank is trying to get their hands on gold.

Gold isn't a risk, at least not in the long-run. Holding USD is a risk. The only people that think gold is risky are the people that don't anticipate serious inflation. Just look around. The conditions are ripe for a currency crisis.

11/12/2009 10:58:03 AM

If you really want to hedge against inflation, then buy something like the Vanguard Emerging market funds. That will get you investing in markets that arent tied to the dollar. personally, I dont think we are going to enter a period of hyper inflation.

I have the gold argument with my in-laws all the time. Its much more risky than you think. I'm not going to now, but I've made many convincing numerical arguments about just how stupid you'd have to be to buy gold and not the market. I'm not saying you cant make money on gold, but just look at that long term chart. Decades around 400. And around 1980, it went to 800, then fell to 400. Why? Fears of inflation. How pissed off would you have been to buy gold at 800, and it takes over 30 years for you to get your money back? How was that supposed to be a hedge that people sat at 50% of their buy-in for nearly 3 decades before they got even? Exact same shit 'could' happen now.

Again, not saying you cant make some money if you play it right, but I think its a huge gamble. Much better bets and hedges right now than gold.

[Edited on November 12, 2009 at 11:42 AM. Reason : .]

11/12/2009 11:37:17 AM

Quote :

"If you really want to hedge against inflation, then buy something like the Vanguard Emerging market funds. That will get you investing in markets that arent tied to the dollar. personally, I dont think we are going to enter a period of hyper inflation."

Foreign stocks are still risky. They're a good investment right now, I'll agree to that. But they aren't "insurance" in the way that gold is. Companies fail all the time, and the same could happen to booming Asian industries. So, Asian markets are a great way to make money right now...I view gold as a way to not lose money.

Quote :

"I have the gold argument with my in-laws all the time. Its much more risky than you think. I'm not going to now, but I've made many convincing numerical arguments about just how stupid you'd have to be to buy gold and not the market. I'm not saying you cant make money on gold, but just look at that long term chart. Decades around 400. And around 1980, it went to 800, then fell to 400. Why? Fears of inflation. How pissed off would you have been to buy gold at 800, and it takes over 30 years for you to get your money back? Exact same shit 'could' happen now."

You're looking at a period of a few months, in 1979-80, where the price of gold spiked. It isn't similar to the current situation. Gold has been a bull market for 8-9 years now. It's been a steady increase in price, and a large part of that is due to a declining dollar. The spike in 1980 was not from actual inflation, but from speculation. You have to look at the specifics of that event. You don't buy gold during a spike, but we're not in a spike.

11/12/2009 11:47:52 AM

Gold hit the 1150 mark. Keep waiting for the correction to buy, but the price just keeps going higher.

11/18/2009 9:55:46 AM

Something you said earlier. We were in double digit inflation in the 1980s. If inflation is so critical to the value of gold, then why did gold not soar through-out the 80s when we had 10+% inflation?

11/18/2009 10:08:29 AM

We didn't have double digit inflation throughout the 80s. Sure, there was some in the early 80s, but for the remainder of the decade it was mostly under 5%. You weren't seeing anywhere close to the same expansion of the money supply back then, either.

11/18/2009 11:08:39 AM

Gold futures at 1207 after a big jump about 20 mins ago. It just keeps getting higher and higher. It's crazy. Been making $$ on GLD options lately.

12/1/2009 9:23:00 PM

I got in around $800 or so and got a lot of when I purchased.

It's perplexing to me that it's moved upwards so slowly when no one would be crazy enough to sell short and everyone seems to be a net buyer.

Maybe there's a lot of holding going on right now and not enough buying?

12/2/2009 8:00:30 PM

Has gold outperformed AAPL over the last year or so?

12/3/2009 12:19:24 AM

No

12/3/2009 12:57:49 AM

Nah, AAPL was probably trading at about 80-85 a year ago b/c I know I got in at 99 in October '08.

Now it's at ~196 last I looked.

However, gold has significantly outperformed AAPL over the last two years...

12/3/2009 6:41:49 AM

^^^^I think a lot of people are long gold. Sure, you have people buying and selling ETFs. But, if you're buying bullion, you're not selling it...at least not for a long while. So, as people continue to buy it and hoard it, demand goes up. The growing demand combined with inflation means the price keeps going up, and I'd be surprised to see a massive sell off anytime soon.

12/3/2009 9:07:23 AM

Yeah that's why I said I'm surprised its moving up so slowly compared to the rallies of the past decade. I think we're maybe halfway there to the upside

12/3/2009 2:00:41 PM

Quote :

"That's looking at the price of gold in USD. The value of the dollar has changed over the years. If you look at the price of gold adjusted for inflation, or at the price of gold in terms of oil or some other commodity, you can see that the price has been much more stable. Sure, it peaks at certain points, but it hasn't been nearly as much of a fluctuation as your chart would suggest."

please let me know how buying gold with barrels of oil goes for you

12/3/2009 2:22:51 PM

Finally the dip.

12/4/2009 11:49:03 AM

This was the dip you were waiting on? It's up 11.6% in the month since you made the thread inquiring about buying it.

I don't understand the "wait for a down day to buy" theory. If the goal of investing is to make money doesn't it make more sense to buy on the up trendline than the down one?

Today would be a sell signal to me if I didn't have such conviction over gold's long term value. I could certainly see it pullback some more but it's not worth it to get out right now.

12/4/2009 5:14:25 PM

So, who is buying silver now?

[Edited on February 19, 2013 at 9:02 PM. Reason : ..]

2/19/2013 9:01:18 PM

I will probably buy a couple buffalos this week.

2/19/2013 9:41:06 PM

Hindsight is 20/20, but the funny part is looking at that chart then you could have literally more than doubled your money by now if you had gotten into gold.

[Edited on February 19, 2013 at 9:49 PM. Reason : damit]

2/19/2013 9:47:46 PM

i bought all my gold around ~400

2/19/2013 9:51:00 PM

In case anyone here isn't on the "end is nigh" kool aid in here, I'll recommend TIPS as a good place to keep money safe.

2/20/2013 11:16:10 AM

ive got titanium. who wants to buy. ill weigh it soon

2/20/2013 11:22:42 AM

Goldline, I mean if Glenn Beck promotes it, it's gotta be good: http://seekingalpha.com/article/1159481-should-gold-investors-buy-the-etf-or-physical-gold

2/20/2013 4:51:16 PM

I paid $25 per troy ounce for silver today.

2/20/2013 5:22:31 PM

TIPS is the worst place to keep your money safe. You'll get killed.

#1 the government misreports inflation every year so you don't get a fair return.

#2 the underlying credit quality of treasuries is shit so you're not even being compensated fairly for all the risk you are taking.


The Fed's D-rate at year end will be 4.5% and it's going to continue going down by the day. 3.5% in 2014 and 2.5% in 2015 if they continue at their manic pace. When the Federal Reserve Balance sheet blows up (and it will clearly) why the hell would you want to hold treasuries?

The D-rate is the rate in which the Federal Reserve starts losing money.

2/20/2013 5:55:21 PM