"Safe" investment, maybe gold?

[r3g]

Coin auctions are a good place to buy gold bullion coins from at spot or very close to. It's where I got all my sovs from. But you need to be in the room bidding in person because there's a hefty premium to bidding in the online auction, plus there's a delay which means you often miss out on bids.

I also bought 4 Krugs from a seller on thesilverforum.com for spot. That was a tad nerve-wracking doing a BACS to a random for £1200 a piece but he was a long-termer and had a good trading rep there and everything worked out great in the end, which resulted in my buying 3 others from him! The forum used to be free to use and trade back then but I've heard it's all paid sub now to access it and trade.

For selling, I took my entire lot worth £50k or so to Chard's at Blackpool. A very cold experience with the staff who kept me locked in the airlock chamber whilst checking the coins and wouldn't let me into the main front desk and seating area. It was quite clear that they thought I was a criminal, in my scruffy jeans, T-shirt and shaved head, waltzing in with £50k of gold to sell, but the money was transferred into my account promptly after they'd checked the coins.

[Scootersp]

r3g said:

after they'd checked the coins.

Did they check or were they interested in any provenance as such or more just specific density/spectrometer(?) tests ie proof of it being actual Gold!?

[r3g]

No idea, couldn't see.

[RSTurboPaul]

pingu393 said:

DonkeyApple said:

r3g said:

You'll need to price to go up about 10% or so to cover the selling and buying premiums, not to mentiom the insured postage costs which would be significant if you're looking at 4 or 5 figures worth.

Yup. Trans costs are what make physical gold such a st investment to be overweight in. People generally only realise that the asset doesn't do what they believed it would do when they come to have to sell. But look back on this thread and all others about gold and the huge trans costs are always denied as being any kind of issue.

But if someone really does need to collateralise then unless it is a large enough holding the only feasible way is to simulate the collateralisation via crossing the physical into an OTC contract for the period required.

Transport, storage and insurance all need to be part of your decision.

More than a single sovereign is probably not insured on a normal household insurance policy.

I'd suggest that most people just take the insurance risk without even knowing the risk they are taking.

Transport and security cost can be reduced by delivering yourself to a local dealer, but you will probably have to take the hit on not achieving the best sell price. My local dealer matches the Bullionbypost price, which is about £25 less on a Britannia than Atkinson, so it's about £15 less than special delivery.

I had an interesting theoretical discussion with a household insurer on the bolded aspect.


It seems that 'legal tender' coins in gold or silver (for example) could fall under one of three categories:

- Art/Collections, including Gold and Silver and plated items
- Money
- Valuable items including watches and jewellry


If a claim was needing to be made, would they fall under 'money' and the face value (only) paid out (which would be a lot less than the value of the underlying material)?

Or would it be classed as a 'collection' of coins / gold / silver, therefore fall under the limits specified for that category?

Or would it be classed as 'valuable items' that may include 'commodities'?


Worth having a chat to one's home insurance provider, I think, in order to establish categorisation, limits of coverage, and any requirements in terms of storage (such as a safe)!

[RSTurboPaul]

So what happened yesterday?!

All the metals jumped up quite a lot and IIRC gold is at an all time high now.



I see BRICS have announced a new currency but I think that came after the moves yesterday?

[ATM]

RSTurboPaul said:

So what happened yesterday?!

All the metals jumped up quite a lot and IIRC gold is at an all time high now.



I see BRICS have announced a new currency but I think that came after the moves yesterday?

I dont know what happened to cause the rise in price. But its worth stating that Gold closed on a weekly basis at an all time high last week and then on Monday closed on a daily basis at an all time high. So the people who look at closing prices can now say these prices were not temporary.

[ATM]

ATM said:

RSTurboPaul said:

So what happened yesterday?!

All the metals jumped up quite a lot and IIRC gold is at an all time high now.



I see BRICS have announced a new currency but I think that came after the moves yesterday?

I dont know what happened to cause the rise in price. But its worth stating that Gold closed on a weekly basis at an all time high last week and then on Monday closed on a daily basis at an all time high. So the people who look at closing prices can now say these prices were not temporary.

If you like charts and 'Technicals' you could drawer some lines like this or as you see fit. Then you could talk about a breakout. I am not suggesting this is the reason. I am not suggesting I know anything. I am not suggesting my lines are .... Golden!

[Mr Whippy]

Fear and greed to maximum!

Just look at bitcoin. 900 new coins a day, about to be 450 a day.

This is the currency designed to fight fiat debasement, but it’s being debased faster than usd, eur and gbp… and gold… yet its price is rocketing.


I’d take any price action at the moment with a pinch of salt.

[ATM]

Mr Whippy said:

I’d take any price action at the moment with a pinch of salt.

The simplest price action for me which is profitable is to wait for a retracement on moves like this before they continue. I'd ideally like to see 50%. But you could start to average in at the 38%, then add at 50% and then finally adding at 62%. I was looking for a target of 2200 after the break of 2050 but that was before it shot up so high so quick. I still think 3000 could happen in the next couple of years.

[RSTurboPaul]

Looks like we passed $2150 today!

[ATM]

RSTurboPaul said:

Looks like we passed $2150 today!

Gold price touched $2300 this morning. Less than a month since @RSTurboPaul posted the above.

Silver has gone from $25 to $27 this week. Silver got very close to its record high price in GBP too.

Record high £21.70
Current price £21.36

[RSTurboPaul]

Interesting times!

[RSTurboPaul]

Alex Jones made some interesting comments on Silver back in 2021:

https://twitter.com/GoldSilverHQ/status/1769413387...

[RSTurboPaul]

The World Bank publishes a "Gold Investing Handbook for Asset Managers":

https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/doc...

[OoopsVoss]

Record high today, still sitting above $2300 an ounce.

All eyes on the US inflation print later this week.

[Scootersp]

For anyone that fancies some tech stock rotation then some of the major Gold miners are way way down from the covid spikes when Gold shot up but isn't as high as it is now.

Loads of risks in this sector but if you look at the 5 year charts some are nearer the, covid "sell everything" spike down, than "the world is ending/companies are going to go bust" peaks. They are often making good cashflow and have low debt, just no love for the sector at all it seems despite the run up to the all time (nominal) highs in Gold itself!?

[RSTurboPaul]

Scootersp said:

For anyone that fancies some tech stock rotation then some of the major Gold miners are way way down from the covid spikes when Gold shot up but isn't as high as it is now.

Loads of risks in this sector but if you look at the 5 year charts some are nearer the, covid "sell everything" spike down, than "the world is ending/companies are going to go bust" peaks. They are often making good cashflow and have low debt, just no love for the sector at all it seems despite the run up to the all time (nominal) highs in Gold itself!?

I wouldn't know where to start in terms of actually purchasing anything, nevermind actually choosing stocks in the first place!

Seems to me that PM miners would be likely to increase in value at some point, though, if demand for the product becomes stronger.


There may be some downwards pressure in terms of oil price highs increasing costs and all that 'ESG' score stuff potentially strangling production somewhat and adding costs??

[ATM]

RSTurboPaul said:

I wouldn't know where to start in terms of actually purchasing anything, nevermind actually choosing stocks in the first place!

Some of the majors like Newmont pay a div. So you get paid to own them.

[46and2]

Does anyone know why Gold has risen so much lately? We could see £1900 an ounce in the not to distant future at this rate.

Which I had bought more when I had the notion a few years ago.

[ATM]

46and2 said:

Does anyone know why Gold has risen so much lately? We could see £1900 an ounce in the not to distant future at this rate.

Which I had bought more when I had the notion a few years ago.

No one really knows

There are a few factors at play which have been well discussed in this thread earlier -

All currencies are being devalued [or inflation is up depending on your understanding of money]

Lots of Central Banks are now buying more Gold and less USD based stuff like treasuries and bonds

War

Economic uncertainty - so its a flight to safety

Talk of interest rate cuts - this is always good for Precious Metals and Commodities in general

Real rates are well below zero or negative - this means the real rate of inflation [not the rubbish inflation numbers we are told] SUBTRACT the current interest rates EQUALS the real rate

Some YouTube commentator types are also talking about commodities in general rising. So this is across the board. Not just Gold and other Precious Metals. We have seen Silver take off a bit recently. You can look at Copper, Platinum and other metals doing well also. Then the softs like Coffee, Cocoa and grains. Everything in the commodity space is rising. So you could argue some of the gains are the commodities just dragging it up with them.

Also some people [or those way out there conspiracy theory types - depending on your view] believe that as the debt mountains pile up and up then this becomes unsustainable. So the US government is now paying more than 1 trillion in interest to its debt or bond holders. Is this why less third parties are less willing to buy more of it. Some people think this could never happen but as the amount of debt increases and their ability to service this debt diminishes then you can get run away inflation or currency devaluation. This then leads to the destruction of the value of USD compared to stuff outside the USD system. So GBP and EUR would get caught up in USD devaluation. But Gold would not. So even if you think the end of the USD is impossible and will never happen in our lifetimes you have to acknowledge the risks are increasing as they accumulate more and more debt with no real plan to reduce it. They are currently paying out way more than they take in. And the amount of this difference is increasing at an accelerating rate. If there is no plan to fix this then this acceleration will continue to ... accelerate and so the value of these currencies will reduce at an accelerating rate and so Gold should in theory do the opposite and increase in value at an accelerating rate.




In simpler terms

Commodities are now increasing which will increase inflation
This should force the central banks to increase rates to curb inflation
But they cant do this because they have so much debt and cant afford to pay higher interest rates on this debt
Even as they do pay out higher interest on their debt this adds to inflation because this money they pay in interest goes out into the economy
If they dont have this money or they dont receive it in taxes they need to create more debt to pay the interest on their existing debt
So as their debt increases and interest rates increase this adds to inflation
This then makes third parties like China or The Saudis to think sod that I'm not buying more USD debt because they are looking more and more F'ed
This then makes the USD worth less and less
This then drives up prices of stuff like commodities
This then forms a loop or down ward spiral