Question for those of you who buy and hold physical metals, from a new subscriber.

Years ago I finished buying the amount of silver I desired for my 'insurance' and I have sat on it ever since.

I nearly sprang for a monster box or two about 6-7 weeks ago, didn't follow through and silver went back up. The next time I went to look after silver had dropped a bunch the premiums were through the roof. Of course the covid-19 caused the run on metals and cleaned out the mints and nearly everything else also.

My silver was bought with premiums between $.89-$2.99 and even though I would love to take advantage of the spot price and GSR above 100, I will not pay the current premium prices. The availability is poor as well right now for any junk silver or ASEs that I would be interested in.

rdem38305,

There are two factors: spot price and premiums.

As "sierra skier" said, the premiums for silver are VERY high right now. This happens when silver hits news lows (which it did in March) which then gets everyone buying physical and driving the price up. This also happened in October 2008. I would wait a bit for this reason.

Premiums for gold, on the other hand are not TOO bad.

The spot price of silver is OK, but is it going to go up or down? This is a big question. I think it will go down more. (Though I did just buy a small amount of "junk silver".)

This spot price of gold is higher, but I think this is the one with a much better chance to go up soon. Maybe we get another dip to buy in May?

This is all conjecture.

If you don't have any gold or silver, I would suggest buying some pre-1933 gold ($5 or $10 coins) to get into the game. Your understanding of the market will increase if you fork out a few bucks. Maybe also some pre-65 silver (junk).

This is the best price I know of:

https://www.gainesvillecoins.com/category/421/pre-1933-us-gold

Right now, it is also important with regards to how much cash you have on hand. In the insanity that is likely to happen over the next months/year, gold might be good, but cash will definitely be good to have.

My two cents.

I was on the hunt at "antique "stores and resale shops for old Morgans before the lockdown. A lot of times the dealers set their price at the beginning of the month and are not sensitive to market moves. Sometimes there is value to be found.

Depending upon the size of your stack , level of fear, availability, resources to spend and assessment of future economic environment should all be considered. To me its ounces in hand not fiat price paid.

Are we going to see inflation or deflation?

I think the immediate danger is definitely deflation. Great examples from the last couple days are oil and palladium. There's no more available storage for oil, so oil storage fees are VERY expensive in Texas right now. Palladium dropped over 10% in one day!

If you look at some charts for 2008, you can see the type of across-the-board price drops you can get: stocks, oil, gold, silver, wheat, real estate, etc.

This is a more immediate danger than cash in the bank, in my opinion. (Unless your money is in Europe, in which case that is a very high danger right now! Banks will screw depositors in the EU before the US, so use that as warning sign.)

But what do I know?

I think it is a good idea to study a bit on the 2007-2008 crisis. I don't think it will be the same, but some things will be similar. I believe this is going to be more like 911 + 2008 financial crisis together.

If this lock down continues for much longer, it will be worse than that.

Fiat cost average

I wouldn't focus so much on the premiums but rather do you think you'll get a better store of value with your traditional savings account?

it seems like we will see both inflation and deflation. I don't see it as one and not the other. My fear is that everything you absolutely need to survive comfortably will inflate in price while all this crap that we buy and don't really need will go down in price. Technically speaking, we already have massive inflation, as evidenced by the insane increase in the currency supply. many experts say that if we experience more money velocity with the level of inflated-ness already in the fiat money supply, it will be game over and hyperinflation will occur.

Tyrion,

I kind of agree with what you are saying in terms of both. We should see shortages and higher prices in the future. But there is also going to be vast destruction of capital which will be deflationary. We should see a lot of loan defaults and also sovereign debt defaults. While money is being created out of thin air, it will also be destroyed out of thin air.

I believe it is certain that gold and silver will both go much higher. Obviously I was wrong about deflation being the immediate problem, as silver has gone up over 50% since then. Also, stocks are going to go much higher. Commodities are going much higher. Bonds are going to be wiped out at some point, which is going to be the real catastrophe.

You can already see that governments are going to get very, very desperate. That is what this lockdown is really about.

contained in my post titled 'Back in 2007 Morgan Stanley was caught red handed and fined'...... from yesterday's podcast. This opinion has not changed in 12 years. No names were changed to protect the guilty for that matter

I told a friend of mine that as a vulnerable low income woman she would be well advised to get some when gold was about $13. She had none and 0 understanding of the sector(s). She delayed and delayed and finally got some silver up around $22. I like the people at Peak Prosperity, but am baffled by their seeming myopic view of the heights to which the conditions of the world will most certainly drive precious metals..at least that was the last thing I read from them just earlier this week. So, if you feel you need some just do it. I wish you well.

We are waiting for the plunge so we can buy a place of our own! Hoping we have enough metal to do that and to sustain us till we die or Jesus comes.

Spend it now! Alistair McCloud (yikes I butchered his name I'm sure) says he puts all currency receipts into metals and converts them back to currency upon need.We only leave enough in the bank to cover bills. Puts THEM at risk, not us.

I would buy as much physical metal as you can get at current prices. If it drops then buy more. At some point the Comex may fail to deliver and we could actually see the paper price go to zero or negative (like Crude Oil). When this happens everyone who thinks they own metals via paper certificates will rush into the physical market. At that point there will be no one left willing to sell their physical.

Finally, people keep talking about the higher premiums in physical silver relative to physical gold. But we have to remember the Gold/Silver ratio. Even by paying the higher premiums on physical silver right now you will still likely be able to use far fewer silver ounces to exchange for gold ounces in the future as the ratio comes back to reality.

In my opinion, the best time to buy is now, not because I think this is the bottom in prices, but more so that in the long-term prices heading North, so it really doesn't matter. As Confucius said, if you try to pick bottoms, you get smelly fingers.

The only proviso I would put on this is that you should only buy physical with cash you can spare. Stacking silver/gold is a long-term wealth preservation or accumulation strategy that can take many years to pay-off. If you want to make a quick buck, then trade the relevant shares for short-term profits, which is what I do to help buy more physical .

I've been stacking since 2008, watched the bull run in 2011 and then watched it go down soon after without regret. During this time I didn't sell a single oz of silver/gold as it's all about the long-term. When silver hits triple digits, then I might consider off-loading some phizz, but until then, I'm holding tight.

It seems like the system certainly wants to deflate. Every missed mortgage payment, every job loss etc... is deflationary. Mike Maloney's been saying for about 10 years we'd see a rollercoaster with the threat of deflation soon exceeded by money printing followed by a wave of real deflation followed eventually by hyperinflation as the end game. Something like that anyway. I haven't seen anything, even lately, to suggest he's wrong about this. Jim Rickards versus Peter Schiff started to have an interesting conversation about this recently, however Schiff became overbearing and the interview didn't real last long enough for Rickards to cover his deflationary argument as I would have liked (see end of video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWKEqjjiNkU

Peggy wrote:

"I told a friend of mine that as a vulnerable low income woman she would be well advised to get some when gold was about $13. "

Was that like in the year 925 A.D. ?

Asking for a really OLD Friend

Hey Spartacus Rex, judging by your name alone my vulnerable friend and I must be about as old as you! lol

No really, you caught me. I meant to say silver. But it would make for some interesting numbers to play with, wouldn't it? Let's see, $13 x ???????...=____________________. Yup very interesting to say the least. Makes me wish I were a lot, LOT older