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Andrew McP

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  1. This is going hideously OT but after following that very versatile link, and having a chuckle at the Audi ad in 'Northern accents', I settled down to watch this week's episode of 'FlashForward', recorded from UK Channel 5. In one of the ad breaks was a trailer for the Ross Noble series running on C5 as well. Either I've got a bad case of hypersensitive Frisbyphobia or that's him as well. He's everywhere! There's no escape. He even speaks to me on my mp3 player!* <fx:runs off cackling> Andrew McP *Oh, hang on, I think that's because I download the podcasts. That might explain it.
  2. Yes, at a pretty hefty discount as well. I'm not really looking for more silver to add to my paperweight collection, but it's still tempting on a day when more good news has apparently been wrung out of the US. Someone bought a washing machine apparently. Andrew McP
  3. I couldn't get excited over such a small offer on a coin I didn't know existed until this morning. :-) I know gold's gold, but I'd rather pay a bit more and have something more recognisable if I ever need to sell them for cash locally. Andrew McP
  4. In recent months there has been a "we buy your gold" advert on LBC talk radio (in London). It has a pretty big audience. Just now I turned on for a few minutes and heard an advert for a firm *selling* gold coins & investment bars... mentioning the capital gains advantage on sovereigns & britannias, among other things. I know we're fairly convinced about the inflationary argument for holding gold, but if I was a little closer to sitting on the fence than camped on the goldbug side, I'd consider this a good point to sell up and run away. Very fast indeed. Andrew McP
  5. What annoys me is that just when I'm emotionally primed to make another PM investment, the pound dives to help negate the fall in the PoG. It's a conspiracy I tell you! :-) Andrew McP
  6. "This is the first time that the quarter sovereign has been struck for issue to the general public." Interesting. I wonder if this tiny 'affordable' unit of gold is an indication that behind the scenes they think there's going to be a move towards mass gold ownership. Or is that putting the cart before the horse? They might just responding to the fact that prices are higher and it's affecting the sales of larger coins among their usual customers. Sovereigns are tiny though. Sneeze near a quarter sov and it'll blow away. Andrew McP
  7. It seems the only way to explain the fact that *everything* is going down, except the dollar. I sometimes have to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming, because everything I thought I'd 'learned' over the last few years seems to be going out of the window. Either I'm going insane (always plausible) or the financial world has gone mad. One or the other. Ok, maybe both. But I'm fortunate enough to be psychologically prepared for all this. I've had inverse-Midas touch all my life, so whenever I get involved in something it's a pretty safe bet that it'll go wrong somehow. So having finally bought into gold & silver in the last six weeks, I knew in my bones that I had to be genuinely prepared for half of that (paper) money to disappear. Or, as I now prefer to think of it, be prepared to face up to the fact that the same cash might soon buy me twice as much shiny 'protection'. As Chris Martenson points out in Chapter 20, you have to weigh up the balance of probabilities in all actions you take, and factor in your personality. In this case I was genuinely prepared for financial Armageddon and its consequences, and the short term cost in this instance has definitely been worth it for me. Especially as while Armageddon may have been put on hold, it's a safe bet that the fiscal muzak being played down the line isn't going to placate that awkward customer forever. Even if it hangs up, the underlying issues still exist, and farming out the call centre to Asia won't help. Even they have limits to their patience. So my instinctive move into PM insurance still feels sound, even if my timing could have been better. It was ever thus! So now my mindset has shifted on to the next chapter. I cannot alter the past (not unless Dr Bubb is related to Dr Who), and I'm glad Armageddon has been postponed. Perhaps indefinitely, but probably just to be replaced by Arsageddon... which is like Armageddon only all the action takes place below the waist, out of sight, and involves the taxpayer and nowhere near enough vaseline. I am now watching gold & silver with renewed interest, hoping they'll head south faster than sterling so I can continue to fill my Lego Fort Knox with something which still feels safer -- perhaps totally irrationally -- than the electronic sterling which lands in my bank account every month. I may only end up with the heaviest Lego castle in the UK, but in less than 40 years I'll probably be worm fodder. At least I'll leave something interesting behind... assuming I haven't bartered it all away for firewood or been locked up for refusing to hand it over to the the New World Disorder. :-) Andrew McP
  8. I clicked on that link, then went off to make some garlic bread, and then got distracted by a problem I'm having with my other PC. Now I just glanced over at this screen, saw the 'donkey sex' page and wondered WTF my subconscious had been up to while I was distracted! What a relief it was when I alt-tabbed my brain back to this bit of my multitasked morning. Andrew McP
  9. Profit comes in many forms. Sometimes it only comes in the form of making less of a loss than most other people. They don't call this decade the 'noughties' for nothing. There's zero chance of getting out of it with any money! ;-) When it comes to buying dips... well, that's just common sense, surely? If you're a long term bull in any market then you will *always* be looking for the inevitable dips. And even new entrants should be wary of committing all their 'spare' money in one go. That's a basic rule of any kind of investing, unless you're day trader. As for GF's 'get out of the kitchen' comment. Well, it's blunt, but it's true. What else would you expect from GF? :-) I fail to see how anyone following this board's overall views on PMs could fail to see that there are no guarantees with gold or silver, especially when the whole of the world's economic powers are pulling out all the stops to make sure normal service is resumed ASAP. It is the long term cost of that intervention which we're looking for protection from, not the daily lottery of the exchanges which govern gold prices as well as shares. This is not a time for faint hearts no matter where your money is held. I think all of us -- myself included! -- have to toughen up, because investments of any kind -- whether you're a buy to let empire builder or someone contemplating your first kruggerand -- require a certain amount of testicular fortitude*. Andrew McP *Public service announcement on behalf of the political correctness watchdog: No testicles are required in order to have testicular fortitude. Testicles are, after all, only prolapsed ovaries with a few tweaks.
  10. As wrongmove has pointed out, there is *always* a need to keep a sense of perspective on precious metals, and you'd have to be extremely brave -- or called Goldfinger :-) -- to dive fully into gold at any price, let alone recent prices. However even if you did, as long as you do it with your own money and not money ear-marked for the new family home, or your imminent retirement, or borrowed from a credit card, then you have -- as the quote goes -- nothing to fear but fear itself. Can *anyone* honestly think that the pound or the dollar are going to retain their current value once the dust has died down? Will the Alt-A loans in the USA, or credit card debt in the UK, or the huge job losses to come in retail & restaurants etc do anything other than require more spending and borrowing to stave off social collapse? This whole PM situation is not necessarily about making money, it's about NOT LOSING SO MUCH money in the face of the financial chaos. Or at least trying not to. If you're totally in any asset -- cash, property, shares, PMs -- you're asking for a thrashing with a slight chance of getting very rich indeed if you're right. Most of us though will just hope to spread our risks around and hope that something helps balance out the bad bets. I'm pleased I bought PM recently even though I've lost a lot of money based mainly on the difference between buying and selling prices (and of course the VAT on silver). I think of it in the same way that I'd try to think about a house if I'd just bought it. Ok, so I overpaid. But as long as I can afford it, I have somewhere of my own to keep the rain off my head. I can similarly afford the risk that I'll never need the precious metal umbrella, but I feel so much better for having that umbrella in the first place. We continue to live through historic times. The danger is that we forget that. The huge swings in markets become commonplace, and we get used to governments pulling financial rabbits out of bottomless magical hats. But sooner or later someone's going to try cutting a debt in half with the blunt saw of inflation, and there's going to be screaming from the box and blood all over the carpet. Andrew McP
  11. It looks like you got the rockets pointing the wrong way Steve. Someone appears to be selling gold and buying shares with the money to prop up the FTSE. Andrew McP
  12. There can't be many better places than New Zealand to be if things are really going pear-shaped. Long term geological instability isn't really a concern at times like this. :-) Yesterday was a beautiful day here in the UK, and I felt guilty about not going out and making the most of it. The best things are still free... though I suspect governments will have to find a way to tax fresh air and clear skies before all this over. It's about the only thing unlikely to be affected by the unfolding crisis. I agree. But then hanging around here, that's hardly a rare point of view. I simply think there will be no alternative; I'd do it myself in their shoes, I'm sure. Though not for votes, simply to buy time while working out WTF is really going on in the economy. Better the devil you know? Andrew McP
  13. At work recently I was looking around at the number of gold rings (particularly sovereign rings... it's that kind of area!) and gold jewellery on both staff and customers, and I wondered if maybe the average person on the street understood gold as a store of wealth all along. It's only some of us who were previously a bit too 'clever', perhaps, who thought we were rediscovering some kind of magic talisman against disaster. Obviously not in your case. Nobody could ever accuse you of being late to the gold party. :-) But I for one definitely used to think it was closer to barbaric relic than basically essential as at least part of our future-proofing. Andrew McP PS Of course much of it will be Argos type 'gold', but I think my point still applies.
  14. That's very useful to know, thanks. Andrew McP
  15. Exactly... and early this week if things go on as they are today. And while to my mind that's a sign of impending <reverb>Doom!</reverb>, I suspect the markets may see it as a sign of leadership, restoring a bit of confidence to markets and pulling gold/silver down. Of course this may be a distraction. I can't help looking at the price of oil and thinking I should be forgetting PMs and putting every penny I've got into a crude ETF. It's got to be the medium term investment of a lifetime. Assuming PMs aren't. :-) If only I was confident ETFs were as safe as a stash of wealth under my own supervision, under current circumstances. Andrew McP
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