Gold and Silver advice

bydnas

jimjames wrote: »

I'm guessing 100% cash.

Bizarre decision to jump from cash to gold. So rather than getting a low interest rate you get none and rather than having capital security you have none.

And now you get 0% on gold rather than 1.31% on savings.

I really don't understand the logic. If you want a better return and don't need capital security then you can get 4% on equity income funds.

We all live different lives and I live a simple one! Each to their own.
I have a friend who spent 30 odd years putting hard earned cash into RBS only to see it smashed from around £13 a share to something like 26p per share in a very short time. He's never gona get that back.
I'm in the camp of if you can't hold it you don't own it. I'm sure everyones heard that one by now.
I'm in the silver camp with very little gold. Both are below cost of production and miners are dropping like flies or merging to cut costs.
It's not for everyone but I feel very secure doing what I'm doing and it makes me smile when I think about what I have.
Even if it bumps along the bottom for another 10 years I'll still have it and one day I'll cash out and move on with a huge smile!

pinkteapot

bydnas wrote: »

Sovereigns over bars. This is the first I've heard coins not allowed to be melted? Not sure that's true but I'll stand corrected if it is.

It might just be British coins (maybe?). It's why you can't send gold sovereigns in to cash4gold etc (not that you'd want to). They melt down the gold they receive and I'm sure I read that the reason they don't accept gold coins is that it's against the law to melt British legal tender.

That being said, there are lots of bullion companies who trade in gold coins and will buy them.

Here we go:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/gold-selling-sites

As an aside, under the 1971 Coinage Act it's illegal to melt down sovereign and Britannia coins, as these are legal tender in the UK. Not that you'd want to, as they're worth more intact.

noggin1980

bydnas wrote: »

We all live different lives and I live a simple one! Each to their own.
I have a friend who spent 30 odd years putting hard earned cash into RBS only to see it smashed from around £13 a share to something like 26p per share in a very short time. He's never gona get that back.
I'm in the camp of if you can't hold it you don't own it. I'm sure everyones heard that one by now.
I'm in the silver camp with very little gold. Both are below cost of production and miners are dropping like flies or merging to cut costs.
It's not for everyone but I feel very secure doing what I'm doing and it makes me smile when I think about what I have.
Even if it bumps along the bottom for another 10 years I'll still have it and one day I'll cash out and move on with a huge smile!

What makes you think they are at the bottom now though?, gold and silver could easily drop back to what it was worth in 2000 (5 times less for gold and 3 times less for silver I think) or much lower and that is without much changing, if gold were to fall out of favour for use in jewellery it's price could utterly collapse there is far more gold out there than is needed for it's other uses.

It's exceptionally dangerous to bank your future on any one thing especially when that one things value is so strongly tied to sentiment rather than any actual value.

[Deleted User]

noggin1980 wrote: »

It's exceptionally dangerous to bank your future on any one thing especially when that one things value is so strongly tied to sentiment rather than any actual value.

Can you please outline the possible alternatives to gold and their intrinsic value?

bydnas

noggin1980 wrote: »

What makes you think they are at the bottom now though?, gold and silver could easily drop back to what it was worth in 2000 (5 times less for gold and 3 times less for silver I think) or much lower and that is without much changing, if gold were to fall out of favour for use in jewellery it's price could utterly collapse there is far more gold out there than is needed for it's other uses.
It's exceptionally dangerous to bank your future on any one thing especially when that one things value is so strongly tied to sentiment rather than any actual value.

I very much doubt silver will go back to £3 an oz but if it does I'll be buying it all the way down! It only makes my average cost per oz cheaper.
I just don't get why folk who buy precious metals get so much negativity? I'm not banking my future on anything.
I enjoy collecting silver coins the same way others collect stamps, teddy bears, starwars figurines, porcelain pigs, you name it it's the same thing! Most silver coins are a work of art with the added excitement that the price could skyrocket in a very short period of time!
What's so wrong with that? I love it and it's mine!

noggin1980

bydnas wrote: »

I very much doubt silver will go back to £3 an oz but if it does I'll be buying it all the way down! It only makes my average cost per oz cheaper.
I just don't get why folk who buy precious metals get so much negativity? I'm not banking my future on anything.
I enjoy collecting silver coins the same way others collect stamps, teddy bears, starwars figurines, porcelain pigs, you name it it's the same thing! Most silver coins are a work of art with the added excitement that the price could skyrocket in a very short period of time!
What's so wrong with that? I love it and it's mine!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with collecting Silver coins as a hobby, I find them attractive and appealing myself, cashing out your savings and investments though and putting it all into Silver is completely different, I hope it works out for you but it's just that you seem to be under the impression that we are at a low in silver/gold prices when it could just as easily be the case that they only ever fall from here. You said it was your nest egg which I why I warned against betting your future on it. If it's just a hobby and you have a good pension funded and your future is secure whatever then great.

kapgf

The long term trend on gold (and silver) still looks down. The Greece issue looks to have been temporarily resolved again, so no immediate massive fear in the market. Also no real signs of inflation on the horizon which would normally send gold higher.


If you just want to speculate on gold or silver you can always consider trading it via a Forex broker as well, since this may work out cheaper than buying and storing the physical assets. This allows you to leverage your capital as well, though is only suitable for investors who fully understand the high risk of trading Forex with leverage.

jimjames

bydnas wrote: »

We all live different lives and I live a simple one! Each to their own.
I have a friend who spent 30 odd years putting hard earned cash into RBS only to see it smashed from around £13 a share to something like 26p per share in a very short time. He's never gona get that back.

I completely understand everyone is different. What seemed bizarre were your stated reason for moving into metals. If your rate was too low in an ISA then why move to something that pays no income?

There is a risk with investment but it's stupid to just invest in one share and then base their view on investment on that experience. If you'd put money into a tracker for the last 5 or 10 years you'd be sitting on a tidy profit.

bigfreddiel

If you want to buy gold or silver buy an etf that invests in these commodities fj

AndyT678

bydnas wrote: »

I have a friend who spent 30 odd years putting hard earned cash into RBS only to see it smashed from around £13 a share to something like 26p per share in a very short time. He's never gona get that back.

Your friend completely misunderstood the risks that he was taking by investing all his wealth into one particular asset and got badly burnt for his naivety. But at least he got 30 years of dividend payouts on the shares he owned.

It was clearly not a good outcome for him but the best alternative surely can't be to pick a different, even more volatile single asset that produces no income and stick all your eggs into that basket instead.