Jump to content

ConvertedGoldBug

Members
  • Posts

    238
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by ConvertedGoldBug

  1. Blimey... has everyone really deserted GEI ? That's not very helpful to the rest of us who valued their input. PS: I vote for keeping silver in its own thread.
  2. Combine them. I can't see the point of two separate threads about the same topic. Have one single thread, and just let whatever discussion occurs at the time dictate the direction of the topic. Otherwise, whenever there's any particular news item to report, it'll end up being posted in both threads (like sometimes happens here anyway), which seems a bit pointless.
  3. That's about the same price I started at as well, and to think it was only about 2-3 years ago!
  4. The bit in bold made me think... If governments chose this route to wipe out debts and devalue the currency, does anyone know, based on actual countries' debts, what ratios would actually achieve this? e.g. US 50:1 UK 75:1 What initial values would be used in a calculation to work this out?
  5. Went and collected them from the Post Office this morning... didn't like not knowing when they'd be delivered, or taking the risk they'd be sent back to the originator. Didn't like driving in these conditions though!
  6. I'm still waiting for mine to arrive. Ordered them over Christmas, but the guy at Weighton sent an email on the Wednesday before New Year saying he'd decided to wait until Monday the 4th to post them, with the excuse of the "pending bank holiday and weekend coming up". He could have dispatched them on the Wed/Thurs before New Years Day, then maybe I'd have had them delivered on the Saturday. So I get a delivery note on Tuesday because I was at work, and then it snowed and I couldn't go and collect them from the Post Office. Arranged a redelivery for today (Saturday), checked the status on Royal Mail tracking system, which says they are "out for delivery", but nothing turned up today! Have arranged for another redelivery for Tuesday, but I bet they won't arrive if there's more snow by then.... It's really annoying not knowing what's happened to my order! Especially when it could have been dispatched a day or two earlier with a simple trip to the post office.
  7. ETF Securities have two types of precious metals ETFs... one that just works on the price (and is backed by AIG ), and also physical ETFs, which are backed up by physical metals, and they use HSBC as the custodian. I know what everyone thinks about ETFs, and are sceptical about how much is actually held in relation to the amount invested in these products, but this may account for increased holdings of the metals in HSBC's vaults.
  8. I found this, and thought it was quite amusing regarding the idea that the best time to sell gold is when it hits the mainstream... http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10516 From the 4th post: Methinks there's still plenty of people waiting for the masses to tell them what to do...
  9. I thought recent 2008 Britannias were only minted to 2500 units (according to the supplier I bought a couple from at the time.) That doesn't seem like many. Does anyone know if this is true? Why limit it to so few? Is this a maximum number stipulated by a higher governing authority? Will there by any left to last throughout the whole year? Maybe they could be bring forward a new set for January, and have decided to make them official 2009 coins. Anyone? I'd like to get some more in January.
  10. Maybe Ker is an I.T. contractor, and was involved in writing their computer systems.... complete with some of his own "additions"
  11. Here's an interesting thread on the GoldIsMoney forums: http://goldismoney.info/forums/showthread.php?t=290835 Suggests that platinum has been included in a list of PM's that the US Government have suspended from selling, implying that stockpiles need to be maintained in case their usage is required for military action.
  12. Who thinks that this big drop in PM's and oil over the last few days (and the continual increase in the dollar) was engineered specifically because of the conflicts in Georgia? I mean, had there not been any intervention, the prices could have shot upwards on the threat of war, and that would have given the impression of further weakness in the US economy and caused more pain. Maybe they had no choice but to throw everything available to prevent this happening...
  13. I was thinking.... since the 80's, there's been a huge shift into stockmarket based investing, which was adopted heavily in America. Everyone has been brought up over the last 30 years or so, that the stockmarket is the best (only?) place to be if you want to stand a chance of making money and keeping ahead of inflation. Here in the UK, financial advisors recommend pension funds to invest in a mix of stocks, bonds and property. People tend to go along with what they're recommended. I wonder what percentage of this whole generation, used to one-way of thinking about investments, would suddenly think of switching into Gold, something that hasn't even been considered as part of a balanced portfolio before? Could take quite a radical shift in Joe Public's way of thinking...
  14. I was considering these a while back, until I came across the following article which kind of put me off... a kind of reality check about the pitfalls of trying to be too greedy (well, that and my lower understanding and familiarity of these methods). http://seekingalpha.com/article/35789-the-...-leveraged-etfs Excerpt from the article: A widely held misconception about these funds is that they will offer twice the return of the underlying index, which means that if the S&P 500 returns about 10% a year, then the SSO should return 20%. But that’s not true, because these funds only double the daily return, and there’s a big difference between doubling the daily return and doubling the annual return. What’s the difference? Let’s say that one day the market goes up 10%, and the next day it falls 10%. The two-day loss for the index is 1%, but the loss for the leveraged fund is 4%. Here’s why: Index: (1 + 10% ) x (1 - 10%) = 1.1 x 0.9 = 0.99, 1% loss X2 Fund: (1 + 20%) x (1 - 20%) = 1.2 x 0.8 = 0.96, 4% loss Thus over a two day period, this fund’s losses are 4x the amount of the index, not 2x. This example comes from the ProShares prospectus, and is a clear indication that investors in 2X funds should not expect their investment to provide double the return of the S&P 500 for any period longer than one day.
  15. That's a shame... It's a pity they don't list and show pictures of the older years coins they have abailable... those two are much nicer than the 2008 edition.
  16. I feel so sorry for you... coins as beautiful as those, and you'll never want to part with them when the time comes to sell.
  17. So you don't reckon you'd be able to spend SAE's in a UK shop? Surely silver is silver, though... hmm, I guess we're back to my original question from last week. Maybe 1/4oz Krugerrands for a monthly shopping trip? But these aren't UK coins either...
  18. Ouch... that's like a 50% premium over current spot price!! Be nice to get a few, but it seems so much easier (i.e. cheaper) for those in the US to stack silver. I think for us in the UK, silver is better for coin collecting... Think I'll just go with BullionVault for a few grand.
  19. I have a few questions about BullionVault.... just been looking at their website, but need to spend more time reading in-depth... in the meantime, if anyone can give me some quick answers. 1. What country (i.e. Zurich, London, New York) did you choose to hold your gold relative to your own location? If it is different to where you live, why did you choose a different country (this question is more for those who live outside of one of those 3 specified locations). 2. What's the minimum investment amount? 3. I understand you pay by bank transfer... is this the same when you wish to withdraw funds (i.e. can you transfer back directly into your bank account, or do they have to send you a cheque in the post)? 4. Do you invest the full amount, or do you have to leave a small cash holding to pay storage fees/charges? 5. If you wanted to try and time the market, can you sell and hold cash before going back in again, or is it not worth it with dealing charges?
  20. That would be useful... maybe also for perhaps half that quantity? Individually, they tend to be around £15 - £16 each, so definitely not worth it unless they're the same price as Maples or Eagles
  21. That's a shame, and surprising... it would be nice to be able to have a "stack" of some of these! As it is, they're too expensive other than to get individual years as one-offs, just as part of a collection.
  22. This is interesting, but I've got a different angle on this, and can also understand the arguments about whether commodities are currently in an overbought bubble. It's the statement "this rush to commodities", which sums it up nicely... surely commodity prices should always be fundamentally based on supply and demand. They're not like shares in businesses, where businesses make money, increase profits, and thereby see the share price go up as a result. It's simply supply and demand, so when we see comments like "the rush to commodities", surely that is explicitly stating that prices are skyrocketing due to speculative money, rather than as a result of normal trading based on how much is available, and who needs it. For example, I've got investments in Energy and Food ETF's, therefore I presume I'm contributing to price rises, and as a result causing this to have a knock-on effect on these items that I buy as a consumer. So this is also happening with the hedge funds and institutions investing in this area.
  23. My point was that Dr Bubb suggested attaching the poll to this Gold discussion thread, which starts from new each month... so the poll would reflect monthly opinions, not long-term, which means in the short span of a month, we could go from underpriced to overpriced and back again. But I would be completely in favour of a separate thread for exit strategies, and include the poll on that... but again, once you've voted, you can't vote again.... Hmmm... swings and roundabouts I think.... we'd have to have a monthly poll, so that the same people can vote each month, but then again, a lot can happen in that month, so it would have to be made clear that the options in the poll reflect longer-term, and not just the opinion for that particular point in time.
  24. I'd like to ask a question about silver in this thread... (seeing as more people are likely to read it than the dedicated silver thread in another section of this forum).... feel free to move it if you wish. I read a lot of doom-mongers on the Kitco and GoldIsMoney forums... they sound like they're mostly Americans who live in remote/isolated locations... and talk about the end of the world, and hoarding/buying Silver Eagles like there's no tomorrow, in the belief that the financial system will collapse and they'll be ok because they'll have their alternate currency. Well, this got me thinking, what about people living in other countries, where there isn't necessarily a readily available supply of recognised coinage to own? Here in the UK, the official coin is the Britannia, but you can hardly buy them in stacks of, say, 20 like you can for other countries. In fact, somewhere like CoinInvestDirect don't even sell Britannias, I had to get one from Ebay, just because I wanted one for the "collection". Now I for one minute don't believe in the scenarios of the aforementioned doom-mongers, but say it happened, I'd presume you'd only be protected if you owned alternative currency from your own country of residence? Who in the UK would accept Eagles or Maples as payment? All we've really got is our smallest gold sovereigns...
  25. I find polls annoying, because these update the date/time of the latest post in a thread, even though it's not a new post but just someone voted. I like to have this forum open, and occasionally refresh it throughout the day, and don't like the idea of it showing "misleading" new entries. Also, what happens if gold/silver become overbought during the month, and are due a correction (or vice versa)? Surely votes of "underpriced" at the beginning the month could quickly no longer reflect general opinion if suddenly everyone thinks "overpriced"...
×
×
  • Create New...