Anyone buying any silver now?

[jim4silver]

I grabbed a few off quality ASEs today for 50 cents over spot. My local coin dealers seem to have good inventory right now, and the two I visited today had very few customers. I thought it would be much busier for some reason.

Although I don't ever buy online, I saw today that Apmex has their brand, new 10 oz Ag bars for 99 cents over spot any quantity. That is cheaper than my local stores sell new NTR and Sunshine 10oz silver bars. Personally I would never buy PMs online, but not a bad deal depending on what their shipping charges are.

Jim

 

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[GrizLeeBear]

I buy and sell on eBay. The rating service makes it safe. I get five and ten ounce bars. I've never regretted a buy. I've found a few gold rings and get close to spot selling on eBay. I once was sure I had a diamond ring and sold that. The buyer informed me it was a Zercona. I refunded and got the ring back. That's the way it works. It sure looked like a diamond to me...but these eyes are getting old. A jewler confirmed what I had and I gave it to a niece. The smile I got made the find as good as a diamond to me.

 

[Marchas45]

I saw that Apmex ad Jim and I had a chuckle to myself as I know Apmex is a Seller for JP Morgan and when I saw buy before Jan 22nd before 3 pm. the first thought that came to mind was Smack Down. LMAO
As for ebay, I don't buy from there anymore to much of a premium over spot, it's cheaper buying from SilverTowne and the like and free shipping. But selling is better as you always get over spot and covers your ebay fees. Lol

 

[SilverHoarder07]

I'm a coin roll hunter but recently decided to give rounds a shot and ordered:

100 Incuse Indian 1 oz silver rounds &
100 Buffalo Indian 1 oz silver rounds

from Provident Metals. They are all brand new in tubes - 5 tubes of each type of round. The purchase date was on 12/31/12 when spot was sitting right at 29.98. I paid 31.12 per round.

Initially I was nervous because of the drop in silver on 1/4 to the lowest point its been in quite awihle but was happy when it shot up for the next 15 days. Now we are sitting in a slump with SPOT PRICE at 31.40 which is -1.04 from where it opened

Honestly, I am a short term kind of guy and if I can make a profit in 2-3 months I will sell at the high and wait for the next low. If the bottom drops out I will just hang on to it until I can break even or still make a profit - this just isnt preferred cause funds are better invested in something that can turn a profit quickly...options are always there....just have to know where to look!

 

[usandthem]

I'm a coin roll hunter but recently decided to give rounds a shot and ordered:

100 Incuse Indian 1 oz silver rounds &
100 Buffalo Indian 1 oz silver rounds

from Provident Metals. They are all brand new in tubes - 5 tubes of each type of round. The purchase date was on 12/31/12 when spot was sitting right at 29.98. I paid 31.12 per round.

Initially I was nervous because of the drop in silver on 1/4 to the lowest point its been in quite awihle but was happy when it shot up for the next 15 days. Now we are sitting in a slump with SPOT PRICE at 31.40 which is -1.04 from where it opened

Honestly, I am a short term kind of guy and if I can make a profit in 2-3 months I will sell at the high and wait for the next low. If the bottom drops out I will just hang on to it until I can break even or still make a profit - this just isnt preferred cause funds are better invested in something that can turn a profit quickly...options are always there....just have to know where to look!

I don't think physical silver is a very good short term investment. Be prepared to hang on to it for a while.

 

[SilverHoarder07]

I don't think physical silver is a very good short term investment. Be prepared to hang on to it for a while.

It really just depends on the price fluctuations. If you check the historical charts you can make an educated guess on when is the right vs the wrong time to buy silver. End of Dec. and Early January (atleast in recent years) shows silver at a low point which is followed by a good rise from mid January - May.

April or May Price - Dec or Jan Price = profit and thats what I am counting on.

If you look at the last 11 years for January regarding the price of silver you will see that 9/11 times spot price has been higher at the end of the month than the beginning. If you are able to buy silver at spot and sell at spot - which many people have luck with in the area of private sales and junk silver - you can make profit in January (historically) 81.8% of the time over the past 11 years.

Volume is key to determining how much profit you are able to make in precious metals and knowing when to buy and when to sell. If you make the right calls you can probably get away with buying and selling a stack of silver 3 times per year, once again profit being determined by the volume you invest. In 1-2 years you can potentially earn more than an individual who bought stacks and are just sitting on them.

Lets imagine a person who buys 1,000 oz at 30.00 an oz. This is an investment of 30k. They are in for the long haul and will not sell until $40 oz. Every $1 increase equates to 1k profit for the holder meaning that a sell of 1,000 oz at $40 per oz yields 40k or 10k profit.

Now lets examine a person who buys the same quantity at the same price but sells at the next price fluctuation of $34 an oz. They have made 4k profit and are now no longer bound to hold that chunk of money in a form that is not liquid. Could the price fluctuation go up to the $40 per oz that person #1 is hoping for? Of course...however, it is more likely that the next jump will be back down - hopefully to the $30 per oz for person #2 to reinvest everything minus the 4k profit they have made essentially putting person 1 and person 2 in the same position except person 2 has done more buying/selling and has profit to show for it, and person 1 has time wasted.

In this scenario many things can vary but the point I am trying to make is that short term precious metals investments can yeild high dollar returns if you have the umph to go ahead with a purchase and you do it when its appropriate. We have all seen the prices shoot up 5+ dollars in as little as a month and drop as much as 5 dollars in a single day! There is nothing wrong with the long haul just more money to be made with an active effort continuous monitoring/research!

I will let you know how this pans out for me personally.

I also appreciate any feedback to this post - no thin skin here! If you (usandthem) could elaborate why you "don't think physical silver is a very good short term investment" lets here it!

 

[jim4silver]

I am bullish on silver, but feel that the shorts are going to push silver down via the Comex in the near future. They will at some point dump their shorts and go long, and will ride silver up to the moon. The same will happen in gold too. But that time is not now. Only the shorts know when that will happen.

People call what the shorters do manipulation, but I call it playing the "game" to their advantage. My personal view is that naked short selling should not be allowed on any thing in any market whether commodities or stocks, etc, but that is not the law and so far whoever the shorters are, they have never been found to be in violation of the laws.

The only ways that the shorters will lose their control (over the short term trends) in the market is if the laws change to disallow what the shorts have been doing up till now ( probably won't happen). Or the physical price breaks apart from the paper price once and for all. This will happen when physical is demanded and cannot be delivered due to lack of supply at that price level in the Comex or the LBMA, and to obtain said silver high premiums have to be paid. Thus let's say the comex price is $20 per ounce, but due to lack of supply at that price physical metal dealers are demanding $30 per ounce for their metal. If that happens it will cause a shock to the markets and silver will gain like a rocket. As long as the paper price controls, like it does today, the shorts can have their way causing quick dips whenever they want. The long term trend they cannot change though, which is proven by the fact that the price has gone from around $4 to $31 or so today since the early 2000s.

No matter what anyone tells you there is no shortage of silver as things stand today. There might be a shortage at today's price, but there is lots out there being hoarded just waiting for some particular price to be released back onto the market. Some does gets used up in modern industrial applications, but much has been mined over the past hundreds of years and stashed in bar form someplace. Look at all the coinage all over the world that was 90% or some other percentage of silver for hundreds of years. And the mining companies have been increasing their yields each year bringing constant supply online. If silver stays above the cost to produce they will keep mining and probably add more projects.

If silver starts to catch on as an investment and large institutional buyers like hedge funds started loading up on physical that could have an effect too. If there is a break from the paper price, it should draw alot of attention from investors that would add to the momemtum (like what happened in 2010 to 2011 when silver almost hit $50 in a relative short time). I believe that once the silver breakout does happen (whenever that is), it will go up fast and when it ends, drop fast too. Much like in the early 1980's but a bit more drawn out.

You can trade silver all day long to make a quick profit and that is good, but make sure you have a good stash of silver because when it does finally take off, it will be too late to buy any at prices like this.

If it does get to the point where the shorts never lose the control but they do one day decide to go long, there will be nothing in the way to stop them driving the price up.

PS Keep an eye on what the "commercial" buyers are doing in silver. If they added more short positions this week (the COT comes out today) I will say expect silver to keep dropping for the short term.

All just my opinion.

Jim

 

[Marchas45]

Lol Jim I just bought 2 rolls of Silver Rounds today, sure the paper spot is $31.18 but the physical price is $3.00 or more over that unless you buy bars.
did you see my previous post about Apmex? I'm starting to think there was something in that. Lol
By the way Congrats on your Platinum, you can turn it in now and switch to Gold and still make a profit. Lol

 

[jim4silver]

Lol Jim I just bought 2 rolls of Silver Rounds today, sure the paper spot is $31.18 but the physical price is $3.00 or more over that unless you buy bars.
did you see my previous post about Apmex? I'm starting to think there was something in that. Lol
By the way Congrats on your Platinum, you can turn it in now and switch to Gold and still make a profit. Lol

Hey Charlie,

I don't have that much of the PGMs quite yet. I like the palladium Canadian Maples and would like to stick to those over bars. I want to get some more palladium but I don't know if I should wait for a dip, it has gone up quite a bit over the past few months

I believe that the PGMs will do well this year as long as auto demand remains constant. If there are more disruptions in South Africa this year that will really be bullish for the metals. I have learned alot about these metals, and they will be in demand for a long time due to their many industrial uses, much like silver except these are much more rare and are mined in unstable areas with high costs for power, etc. Big problem though if they ever invent a catalytic converter that doesn't need PGMs anymore- probably a 50 to 60% haircut overnight if that happened. If auto production falls that will negatively impact PGMs as well.

The past recent trend for catalytic converters has been to use as much palladium as possible in place of platinum and to reduce rhodium as much as possible although rhodium is used in most catalytic converters in gas cars. Rhodium is now dirt cheap compared to what it was in 2008 which was $10,000 at one point. They would be smart to retool more rhodium in now and load up while it is still cheap. Rhodium is the rarest of the 3 main metals with only about 30 tons mined per year in good years. New innovations are taking place in diesel reduction systems to try and incorporate more palladium, but it does not work nearly as well as platinum so they will always need that for diesel. Diesel engines don't use the standard 3 way converters that gas engines do.

Some of the big mines are mothballing mines due to increasing costs to mine and the past flat/lower prices of the PGM metals. They will be cutting production which means less ounces out of the ground even without political unrest. If demand goes up as is being predicted for more autos all over the world, it could result a decent move up for all of the PGMs.


Jim

 

[0121stockpicker]

I'm a coin roll hunter but recently decided to give rounds a shot and ordered:

100 Incuse Indian 1 oz silver rounds &
100 Buffalo Indian 1 oz silver rounds

from Provident Metals. They are all brand new in tubes - 5 tubes of each type of round. The purchase date was on 12/31/12 when spot was sitting right at 29.98. I paid 31.12 per round.

Initially I was nervous because of the drop in silver on 1/4 to the lowest point its been in quite awihle but was happy when it shot up for the next 15 days. Now we are sitting in a slump with SPOT PRICE at 31.40 which is -1.04 from where it opened

Honestly, I am a short term kind of guy and if I can make a profit in 2-3 months I will sell at the high and wait for the next low. If the bottom drops out I will just hang on to it until I can break even or still make a profit - this just isnt preferred cause funds are better invested in something that can turn a profit quickly...options are always there....just have to know where to look!

If your looking to "trade" silver I would recommend that you just use ETFs. Why less in transaction costs and you don't have to worry about shipping/storing physical metals. Have you ever looked in pm ETFs?

 

[SilverHoarder07]

If your looking to "trade" silver I would recommend that you just use ETFs. Why less in transaction costs and you don't have to worry about shipping/storing physical metals. Have you ever looked in pm ETFs?

I never truly "worry" about storing precious metals. I keep them in a safe box at a place where I work 6 days a week. I know alot of people are concerned with safe boxes not being insured and what not but for me, I really have no issues since I have a line of sight on its resting place for 50+ hours a week.

Honestly, I have never looked into PM ETFs because I am hooked on the look and feel of the physical product. I am not a person who believes that everything is going to crumble and paper currency and ETFs will be worthless and I will lose everything. I just like holding a tube of rounds or Silver Eagles and knowing that in reality its just as liquid as any other currency and easily transferable.

Maybe its just me.

 

[0121stockpicker]

I totally understand. Only reason I brought them up was because you seemed like a more active trader than most. They are perfect vehicles for trading and the transaction costs are minimal so much more in your pocket. If you really want to speculate you can use silver futures and or option on futures also.

I used to do metals and mining stocks for a well know global natural resource mutual fund.

 

[SilverHoarder07]

I totally understand. Only reason I brought them up was because you seemed like a more active trader than most. They are perfect vehicles for trading and the transaction costs are minimal so much more in your pocket. If you really want to speculate you can use silver futures and or option on futures also.

I used to do metals and mining stocks for a well know global natural resource mutual fund.

Oh kool deal. Do you have any resources where I can read up how to get involved in this type of trading? Physical is pretty straight forward and easy to get into, ETFs seem like they have more legal issues involved and fine print.

 

[0121stockpicker]

Nope just like buying and selling a stock. These have tickets and trade on the exchanges. Buy and sell them in seconds right in your brokerage account. It's basically buying the stock in a company whose only asset is physical gold, silver PGMs, whatever you want. No buying above spot and selling below, etc, no shipping and handling.

 

[0121stockpicker]

Oh kool deal. Do you have any resources where I can read up how to get involved in this type of trading? Physical is pretty straight forward and easy to get into, ETFs seem like they have more legal issues involved and fine print.

Same exact thing as buying any stock. For silver look up ticker SLV. It's basically owning a stock in a company whose only asset is a boat load of physical silver. You will note that the price is the exact same price as one ounce of silver. Can be bought and sold in second. There are all sorts of commodity etfs now. You can get all the individual metals you can buy a basket of metals, can buy ag crops, livestock, energy. I just picked up some nat gas a few weeks ago and then recently wrote some covered calls against them.

Best of luck to you- trading commodities can be a tough game to play. But it's fun.

 

[usandthem]

If your looking to "trade" silver I would recommend that you just use ETFs. Why less in transaction costs and you don't have to worry about shipping/storing physical metals. Have you ever looked in pm ETFs?

This would have been my reply but Stockpicker beat me to it.

 

[jim4silver]

This would have been my reply but Stockpicker beat me to it.

ETFs are good for short term trades. But another reason which I feel is even more reason to use an ETF would be when/if silver got pushed down real fast and when you went to the coin store to take advantage of the lower prices, the coin dealer says "we are out" or wants to add a $5 premium to the Merry Christmas bars they have. In that instance you can get in the ETF right at the spot price and when you sell get out at the spot price. No dealer premiums, only your regular stock trade fees, etc.

I would not recommend ETFs for long term holdings nor would I replace my core physical silver stash with anything but real metals in my possession.

Jim

 

[0121stockpicker]

ETFs are good for short term trades. But another reason which I feel is even more reason to use an ETF would be when/if silver got pushed down real fast and when you went to the coin store to take advantage of the lower prices, the coin dealer says "we are out" or wants to add a $5 premium to the Merry Christmas bars they have. In that instance you can get in the ETF right at the spot price and when you sell get out at the spot price. No dealer premiums, only your regular stock trade fees, etc.

I would not recommend ETFs for long term holdings nor would I replace my core physical silver stash with anything but real metals in my possession.

Jim

Yup - ETFs for trading, physical for "insurance". It's especially good for more exotic metals / commodities that individuals either can't get or get charged a huge spread b

 

[jim4silver]

Here is what I meant in a prior post in this thread regarding the "commercial" positions via Comex. This looks short term bearish to me.

Gold & Silver COT Report 1/25: Commercials Add a Massive 27 Million Ounces to Silver Shorts! | SilverDoctors.com

Of course, anything can happen in this world and silver and gold could shoot up over night. No way to really know for sure.

Jim

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

I actually have been trollign Ebay for some time, and buy Silver when its someone that has no idea what they are selling. And I can tell there are alot of others doing it, because i lose half the auctions i see as they are sold withing seconds of the postings.

But i did pick up 6 Silver Quarters for 15 bucks a couple weeks ago...the deals are there, you just have to be glue to a computer like i am (Because of work)