So You Took The Plunge in Silver ?

[Pete]

Having invested in various products over the past decades I got hooked on PMs and silver in particular about. 5 years ago.

Five years ago we were facing the financial SHTF scenario so the consensus ( at the time ) was to get out of fiat and pile into metals.

My email inbox was bombarded daily with advice of the great wealth protection and investment opportunites of gold and silver.

There was also the "Silver Stackers" Forum from Downunder that echoed the merits and vast fortunes to be made by backing the truck up and buying PMs. Indeed silver was going to the moon to quote many on the Aussie forum. New issue Perth Mint coins were selling out as soon as they were released and silver was £30 per ounce. It couldn't get better so keep stacking and stacking ...

 

Meanwhile the stock markets plummeted and it was bad timing for anyone retiring on an annuity with their pension pot indexed to say the FTSE 100.

 

Five years on however I pulled out two charts for comparison -

The spot price of silver and the growth in a typical UK Equities Fund ( note this is not the best performing fund but a basket of funds, so many funds have performed considerably better! ). Had the dividends been reinvested the growth would be even higher.

 

Sharing with forum members - my silver stack is today worth half its cost but fortunately my ISAs and pension funds have risen dramatically so I am not forced to sell silver at a loss if I need cash.

The moral of this story to all our enthusiastic ( young ) stackers is don't put all your eggs in one basket.

 

Also I am not convinced the global melt down that appeared some years ago has been halted - temporarily paused possibly.

Things are still pretty bad with rising huge national debts and the time bomb is still ticking; it's just we seem to be good at focussing on something else presently.

 

Metals may yet have their day in the future but in terms of wealth, for me, silver has been a poor investment.

 

 

[Dieselbhoy]

Having invested in various products over the past decades I got hooked on PMs and silver in particular about. 5 years ago.

Five years ago we were facing the financial SHTF scenario so the consensus ( at the time ) was to get out of fiat and pile into metals.

My email inbox was bombarded daily with advice of the great wealth protection and investment opportunites of gold and silver.

There was also the "Silver Stackers" Forum from Downunder that echoed the merits and vast fortunes to be made by backing the truck up and buying PMs. Indeed silver was going to the moon to quote many on the Aussie forum. New issue Perth Mint coins were selling out as soon as they were released and silver was £30 per ounce. It couldn't get better so keep stacking and stacking ...

 

Meanwhile the stock markets plummeted and it was bad timing for anyone retiring on an annuity with their pension pot indexed to say the FTSE 100.

 

Five years on however I pulled out two charts for comparison -

The spot price of silver and the growth in a typical UK Equities Fund ( note this is not the best performing fund but a basket of funds, so many funds have performed considerably better! ). Had the dividends been reinvested the growth would be even higher.

 

Sharing with forum members - my silver stack is today worth half its cost but fortunately my ISAs and pension funds have risen dramatically so I am not forced to sell silver at a loss if I need cash.

The moral of this story to all our enthusiastic ( young ) stackers is don't put all your eggs in one basket.

 

Also I am not convinced the global melt down that appeared some years ago has been halted - temporarily paused possibly.

Things are still pretty bad with rising huge national debts and the time bomb is still ticking; it's just we seem to be good at focussing on something else presently.

 

Metals may yet have their day in the future but in terms of wealth, for me, silver has been a poor investment.

great post m8 as im new to the PM game i really like silver as a product, and its seems a cheap price but wasnt sure if it gave you a good return

 

much appreciated,im starting to think towards my future purchases and maybe to have silver as a sideline but gold for my main guilty pleasure

[HelpingHands]

In five years time we could be posting both those graphs showing the reverse.

[Pete]

In five years time we could be posting both those graphs showing the reverse.

 I wish !!

Correction - not quite - because you should only have 10-15% of your conkers in commodities like PMs.

The world has an ever expanding population that require feeding, clothing, medicines ( and tobacco ) so many suppliers of these essentials will continue to survive and prosper so the balanced equities are unlikely to crash, maybe fall a but recover later. Agreed as gold and silver must be close to their mining costs ( ref required here ) there is a strong argument in favour of a bull market in the future but silver has a long way to recover from its highs only a few years ago.

[HelpingHands]

I don't think a 70% growth in silver in the next five years would be that much of an improbability.

[Kman]

I made a youtube video about this, kind of

 

I compared gold and silver to domain names as an investment; basically, domain names much better (if you know what you're doing and with a bit of luck of course) 

 

[HelpingHands]

Out of interest how many six pounds did you need to invest before choosing a domain with a large return?

[Kman]

Out of interest how many five pounds did you need to invest before choosing a domain with a large return?

 

I was knowledgeable about SEO prior to domain names, the first domain I got was dropcaught for me by a public catching service, I booked it with them because it had a lot of strong links, paid £45 for the catch + £12 for the transfer so £57 total, sold it for £2500 within the next week.  

 

Should add it was a no catch no fee, so if they hadn't of caught it I wouldn't of spent anything. 

[Dieselbhoy]

I made a youtube video about this, kind of

 

I compared gold and silver to domain names as an investment; basically, domain names much better (if you know what you're doing and with a bit of luck of course) 

 

you just wet my appetite for domain names

[HelpingHands]

I see. It's just hard to understand the ROI on an individual buy when I know nothing about them. I assume there are losses too which never get sold.

Not that I'm comparing you to this example but in isolation a gambler could say how much he won on roulette when zero came in without mentioning the losing spins.

I suspect unsold domains would be like unsold stock and not a loss.

[HighlandTiger]

@Kman.

 

What do you think. Is this guy having a laugh..

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24kgold-nagoya-PREMIUM-DOMAIN-NAME-FOR-SALE-GOLD-BAR-COINS-NAGOYA-JAPAN-/251624085260?pt=US_Bullion_Bars_Rounds&hash=item3a95f6d70c

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24kgold-tokyo-PREMIUM-DOMAIN-NAME-FOR-SALE-GOLD-BAR-COINS-TOKYO-JAPAN-/261570522003?pt=US_Bullion_Bars_Rounds&hash=item3ce6d16b93

[TenOunces]

I am sorry people got burned in silver and gold.  People got caught up in the hype.  It wasn't going to go up for ever.  It is sad to me to see people get into silver for the wrong reasons and get burned.  I am not saying that the OP got into it for the wrong reasons. Silver (and gold) are not for making money IMO.  I think people who buy gold and silver, or any other commodity at that, to "make money"  is in it for the wrong reasons. Example of this are the paper players.  Silver and gold in particular are for protecting your money.   Even adamant gold bugs say to keep only 10%  of your portfolio in PMs. Stocks are always good to have.  But you have to buy them at the right time.  I feel right now it is a good time to buy physical PMs and not stocks.  But When the DJI was at 6,000, ya that was a good time to buy, and PMs.  Everything got slammed.  Problem is no one wants to sell because it may go higher.  Well those are the ones who get taken to the wood shed.  I am not saying I am a market predicter, I am not a trader either.  But you don't have to be trader to see a over all time to buy and sell.  I was watching CNBC on Tuesday.  They were telling me to buy certain stocks that can "protect" my portfolio. Ok, yes,  P&G is a good play to protect your portfolio.  They said one sentence that should ring anyone brain who has even an ounce of intelligence who invest.  They said that P&G was at an all time high and it is a good buy.  REALLY.  Who the hell buys a stock at an all time high?????? These pumpers and dumpers are who tricked people into silver with their too the moon predictions.  Now mostly they were right.  The QE in the US did make PMs go up as well as fear of the banking system failing.  But these pumpers didn't also say when they sold or advised people to sell after silver started to fall from $49.  The next market correction we get I may jump back into some long term stocks.  Mean while I am focusing on my silver stack at these prices.  I got tired of waiting.  $25, then I said ok I will jump in at $22, then I said ok ok, $20.  Once $20 came I said no way, under $20 I'm in.  Well $19 came and still I had reservation.  So at $18 and change I started buying.  I have been buying all the way down to now.  I just got some more shiny in the mail today   The reason I am buying now is because I think we are close a bottom.  May be a buck down or not.  But Now is the time for me.   

[lightjaw]

Typing on a tablet so apologies for any spelling mistakes.

Silver is a poor investment...till it goes up in price. Shares are a great investment...till they crash. All these things go up and down, and unless you are planning to flip right away I don't think it matters. I have a few k in silver, a few in gold, a few in shares. I just ask myself what I would have spent the money on if I had not invested it in these things, and you know what the answer is? Chicken nuggets. I love them as well as all types of fast food crap. Way I see it, at least I have something now that I can put towards the future even if its not as much as I would like, compared to the massive lard arse I would have had if I had just blown the money like I did foe many years before.

The something I have now is better than the nothing I would have had if I had not started investing.

[Pipers]

Good post Pete, Tenounces,  Remember PM's may take 20 years to come back to the highs, or they may be back next year.  If the Gold miners start to Hedge then it maybe 20 years till the next bull market.  But reading articles the Gold miners are more likely to moth ball the mines this time around and dump the price of gold and restricted its supply to start a new bull market.

Link Moneyweek GoldMiners  Hedging 

 

http://moneyweek.com/gold-bear-market-has-a-lot-longer-to-go/

 

Reading about other investments the Bond market is at a 250 year high just right to pop when it does and the bond prices go right down then I will buy some at the bottom of the market.  When M Thatcher went to the Market she had to pay 10-15% on her bonds now the government pays 1%.  Same with shares most of us have now cashed in our shares a few months ago, waiting for the crash.

[craig12]

i m confused over the bank guarantee system , i got into pm,s cos of the cypruss situation,  however i still have an isa and a seperate account , as i understand the bank guarantee scheme which covers you for up to £85000   now i have heard that the bankers may take our money and if that happens  then we get the scheme kick in , but ive heard is that all we,ll get is a sort of guarantee that one day we will get our money back up to £85000 sort of an iou

i have also heard that if the cypruss thing happens then the bank accounts will be left alone and the pension pots will be robbed without our permission

 

so to summarise for me and for me only .if we were not in world credit crunch, qe programmes  i dont think i would have bought a single oz of silver

[HelpingHands]

There is a guarantee but how long you'd have to wait is anybody's guess. Maybe the more banks that go under the longer you'd wait. Who knows?

[Pete]

You also need to watch that if you are "well-healed" enough to have over £85k sitting in various bank accounts that your cash is held in totally different banks.

Since many banks are subsidiaries or linked to others you need to check this carefully as your limit is £85k with a banking group.

For example Bank of Scotland, Birmingham Midshires and Halifax are part of Lloyds.

NatWest and Ulster Bank are part of RBS.

There might be specific guarantees with sister banks but don't assume - check carefully if in doubt !

[Pipers]

The UK is Fully signed up to the new rules of banking creditor list of importance as it were, in the past the depositors were at the front of the queue when it came to getting your money back when a bank went bust, not any more.  Corporate interests come first with depositors well down the pecking order, hence the saying bail in like in Cyprus when the depositors had to bail out corporate interests.  In other words normal people will pay for big business out of there savings.  This has been kept out of the main stream media!  

 

IMO we will not hear anything about this until a bank goes bust or there is a run on a bank then the public will get angry 

[Pete]

If a bank goes bust then by the time the public hear about it, it will already be too late for us mortals to do anything miraculous.

Was it not the case in Cyprus that the Russian oligarths somehow managed to get their millions safely out of Cyprus days before the SHTF ?

These bankers look after one another and their top clients.

Other well healed Cypriots took the hit when the news hit the street becasue it was too late.

If there was a similar situation in the UK I am pretty certain those with the biggest deposits will get a tip-off over a lunch in a private members club.

[daz]

Just as well I'm always overdrawn then

[craig12]

i always find theres too much month left at the end of the money

 

im in the brown again