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DonkeyApple
12,324 posts
39 months
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supersingle said: You don't know what you're talking about. You can buy physical gold in small quantities (coins or small bars) from a High St gold retailer for one or two percent above spot price. When you come to sell the spread is the same. So you're looking at a 2 to 4% transaction cost.
No use if you fancy yourself as some sort of city day trader, but perfectly acceptable and transparent for most mortal folk.
What do you have against ordinary people owning a little physical gold away from the clutches of the financial system. Do you work in the City or something? I've nothing against people doing what they want, but I've spent nearly 20 years in an industry beset by spank shops peddling their wares to dumb investors and I'm afraid gold is very much one of these products. You only have to see the links people on this forum are putting up to what they think are articles written by credible people when in fact most of them are advertorials commissioned by well known individuals with a very strong track record. It is a turd of an industry and I see poor mugs sleep walking into it and falling for the hype and lies and wasting their money most days. If my posts make one person open their eyes a bit more and question what they are doing and why then I am pleased. Afterall, what actual use is physical gold? Seriously, what use does it have in our society? And re the costs, most people are not paying anywhere near those rates. And as for jewellers, how do you think they will price the gold in market conditions when people actually need to cash it in?  The whole silly farce about gold is that if you ever genuinely needed to use it because of social issues then it will have next to no value in comparison to what it is being sold for today. Every major event in recent history which has led to an exodus of people or a need for gold as some form of primative currency has proven this. As I mentioned in a previous thread, what do you think English jewellers were offering to Jewish imigrants in the late 30s? Sure, have some gold for fun but it's foolish to think it actually has any significant value close to what you will be paying for it if it ever came to needing it as some form of currency. People just aren't thinking straight.
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ZeeTacoe
2,394 posts
92 months
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DonkeyApple said: Afterall, what actual use is physical gold? Seriously, what use does it have in our society? Is it not useful for connectors and other bits in electronics? Also what do you mean by "synthetic gold"?
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DonkeyApple
12,324 posts
39 months
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ZeeTacoe said: DonkeyApple said: Afterall, what actual use is physical gold? Seriously, what use does it have in our society? Is it not useful for connectors and other bits in electronics? Also what do you mean by "synthetic gold"? It has huge uses in manufacturing, but that can't be what has pushed the price up as economic demand for the products has not grown, probably fallen. Synthetics are OTC contracts based on the price of gold but not necassarily backed by the physical existence of gold. Some of these instruments have a deliberate effect of massively increasing demand as they massively increase the number of buyers by just existing. for example, gold traditionally was only available either as spot physical or a forward future based on physical delivery. Most funds such as pension funds and certainly retail investors couldn't really access this market, but if you create something like an ETF, which trades as an equity, then instantly, all the low risk and small portfolio money can invest in gold. It's quite interesting to read up on the recent creation of the copper ETF by JPM or GS. First of all they had to buy physical to meet initial expected demand and this spiked the price but then as the ETF could be held in equity portfolios and pensions the demand went up. If I'm honest, I can see a time and already feel we ethically should, prevent the trading of OTCs in commods for speculative purposes and go back to these products only being able to be traded and held by licensed producers and sellers. The level of premium due to sythetics is shocking and causing hideous inflation that all of us are hit by, and in fact, in some corners of the world is contributing to starvation.
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AdvocatusD
Original Poster
1,897 posts
101 months
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That was an interesting youtube link...
Then again, that guy has an ax to grind.
Any famous, neutral commentators got videos out there on gold and the economy?
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donna180
627 posts
31 months
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RichyBoy
2,091 posts
87 months
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So talk of losing our triple a, at the present time what other saviour is there?
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RichyBoy
2,091 posts
87 months
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Just putting this here to refer back to next year:
2012 Gold Averages: Goldman $1,810/oz, Barclays $2,000/oz and UBS $2,050/oz
Bullion banks remain positive on gold for 2012 with major banks predicting an average gold price of between 13% and 28% above today’s spot at $1,595/oz. It will be interesting to see if these forecasts get as much international media coverage as the poll of 20 hedge fund managers has.
UBS have reiterated their bullish outlook for gold and believe gold will average $2,050/oz in 2012. This is 28% above today’s spot price of $1595/oz.
Goldman Sachs said overnight that gold will average $1,810/oz in 2012 – which is 13% above today’s spot price.
Barclays Capital have said this morning that gold will average $2,000/oz in 2012 – which is 25% above today’s spot price.
Gold will move higher due to “structural pillars of support” in an environment of negative real interest rates and rising inflationary pressures, as well as continued central bank buying.
Given the risks posed to the Eurozone and indeed the UK, gold priced in sterling and euros should experience similar gains - if not more.
The ECB’s Draghi’s warning regarding a Eurozone break up, currency devaluations and the risk of a “big inflation” is a reminder that the price of gold should be considered not solely in dollar terms but also in other currencies –especially were the European single currency to become less single.
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hornet
5,524 posts
120 months
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Presumably if you are to hold small amounts of gold, it's more sensible to buy collectable rather than bullion coins, as at least that way you have numismatic as well as metals value? True, you're paying way over the odds in terms of pure content, but then isn't the same also true of collecting (for example) stamps? A rare stamp has no utility at all, and the value is way in excess of the paper and ink content, but you don't hear people declaring Penny Blacks are in a bubble. There are certainly a lot of people with a vested interest in pushing gold (and silver) to retail punters, and a degree of cynicism is required, but that's true of pretty much everything isn't it?
As a slight aside, was listening to a slightly "out there" podcast recently that made what I think is a very valid point about investing. Given currency debasement, inflation and everything else, if you want a 5% or so return on your money, you're probably better off going out and buying a few months worth of non-perishable food and sundy household goods. You'll be buying it in the future anyway, and bulk buying now not only offers economies of scale (assuming you have storage), it saves time and energy on repeated trips. Plus, if for example the weather gets dicey, you don't have to slip and slide to the shops, so there's less risk of injury! Seems like a reasonably sensible point to me. A great many of us live a very hand to mouth lifestyle, as we assume a) the shops will always be open and b) there always being food in them. Dovetails nicely with a point made above about cash reserves. Yes, it probably IS a bit tinfoil hat to have stacks of cash at home in expectation of a zombie apocalypse, but if there is another major banking shock, who's to say there won't be a period where the systems are taken down to avoid a run? Nothing wrong with having a bit of cash in hand just in case.
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Digga
10,942 posts
153 months
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donna180 said: I think the HSBC vs. MF Global lawsuit has also acused some disturbance and highlighted to inherent danger of 'investing' in synthetic gold.
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AdvocatusD
Original Poster
1,897 posts
101 months
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RichyBoy said: Just putting this here to refer back to next year:
2012 Gold Averages: Goldman $1,810/oz, Barclays $2,000/oz and UBS $2,050/oz Excellent. I like the idea of setting a marker and the chance for some of us to say "I told you so"! What do we predict the value to be in $ per ounce within one week of either side of 1 March 2012? I'm going for $1760.
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AdvocatusD
Original Poster
1,897 posts
101 months
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Jesus Christ. Did any of you see the way silver and gold spiked yesterday? I think I saw it go up $50 in about as many minutes!
Let's see how long it actually lasts...
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DonkeyApple
12,324 posts
39 months
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AdvocatusD said: Jesus Christ. Did any of you see the way silver and gold spiked yesterday? I think I saw it go up $50 in about as many minutes!
Let's see how long it actually lasts... Italian matress money 
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ZeeTacoe
2,394 posts
92 months
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Warren Buffet said: Today the world’s gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce – gold’s price as I write this – its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A.
Let’s now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world’s most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B? Interesting take on the gold market. From Berkshire Hathaway's 2011 annual report http://nonchalantrepreneur.com/post/18259699208/wa...
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Digga
10,942 posts
153 months
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DonkeyApple said: AdvocatusD said: Jesus Christ. Did any of you see the way silver and gold spiked yesterday? I think I saw it go up $50 in about as many minutes!
Let's see how long it actually lasts... Italian matress money More to come still I reckon - I reckon those predictions from last year look to be in the right ballpark. AdvocatusD's $1760 for March is looking very sound. 
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DonkeyApple
12,324 posts
39 months
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Digga said: More to come still I reckon - I reckon those predictions from last year look to be in the right ballpark. AdvocatusD's $1760 for March is looking very sound. Yup. The levels of money laundering in the EU at the moment is staggering. The southern cultures have always hoarded cash as they have a history of military instability like most slow economies. This cash is desperately trying to convert out of Euros and also evade taxation measures. There are a lot of coach trips to Switzerland at present. The question is how much more is there to go, what actual weighting does this effect have on the price and if it is significant then what happens when these holders become sellers, as they will. Or, are the OTC, partly backed contracts that trade in an amount of gold that is greater than all the physical gold in existence a stronger effect? Personally, I believe that the price would halve overnight if they restricted OTC contracts and reverted to physical trading only.
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robm3
3,445 posts
97 months
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Gold or Tungsten from North Korea Mint?
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Ayahuasca
16,223 posts
149 months
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DonkeyApple said: It's just a mechanism to strip the savings of silly, old people and move them to the Caymen. Who are these Caymen? How do you get to be one?
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AdvocatusD
Original Poster
1,897 posts
101 months
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Ayahuasca said: Who are these Caymen? How do you get to be one? He means Cayman. This is PH, so he's talking about the car.  Still not clear what the point of saving money in a car is though?  Back on topic!
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DonkeyApple
12,324 posts
39 months
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Ayahuasca said: DonkeyApple said: It's just a mechanism to strip the savings of silly, old people and move them to the Caymen. Who are these Caymen? How do you get to be one? The traditionally preferred islands for running your spank shop winnings via. You'd stick your nominee directors in the Solomons and in the old days hold bearer stock, but that's pretty much been halted by AML legislation so they just run multi jurisdictions to increase confusion and to make it more and more costly for anyone to try and come after the money. Quite a few have an end in Belize nowadays.
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Ayahuasca
16,223 posts
149 months
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DonkeyApple said: Ayahuasca said: DonkeyApple said: It's just a mechanism to strip the savings of silly, old people and move them to the Caymen. Who are these Caymen? How do you get to be one? The traditionally preferred islands for running your spank shop winnings via. You'd stick your nominee directors in the Solomons and in the old days hold bearer stock, but that's pretty much been halted by AML legislation so they just run multi jurisdictions to increase confusion and to make it more and more costly for anyone to try and come after the money. Quite a few have an end in Belize nowadays. Nah, Panama is the location of choice, where nominee directors / bearer shares are very much alive and well. Cayman is so 1980's. Belize? No thanks.
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