Best ways to hold precious metals

Computer_Beginner

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

glad to hear it.


and i hope you're not putting more than 1% of your investible assets in PMs.






false - unless you define "store of value" in some technical way that's irrelevant to most people.

Of course gold holds its value better than fiat currency.
How many GBP or USD did you get for one ounce of gold in 1800? Or 1850? Or 1900? Or 1950?

Gold isn't a better investment long term compared to property or equity funds, but it will always beat fiat currency in the long term.

short_butt_sweet

Computer_Beginner wrote: »

Of course gold holds its value better than fiat currency.
How many GBP or USD did you get for one ounce of gold in 1800? Or 1850? Or 1900? Or 1950?

do you flush the interest on savings accounts down the loo? or just keep your money under the mattress?


including the interest, cash gives you about the same long-term return as gold.

Gold isn't a better investment long term compared to property or equity funds, but it will always beat fiat currency in the long term.

agreed. for the long term, property or equities are best.


for the short term, cash is best, because it's pretty stable in value (if you live in a country with a good functional currency, e.g. the UK).


there's no term where gold is best.

Computer_Beginner

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

do you flush the interest on savings accounts down the loo? or just keep your money under the mattress?


including the interest, cash gives you about the same long-term return as gold.



agreed. for the long term, property or equities are best.


for the short term, cash is best, because it's pretty stable in value (if you live in a country with a good functional currency, e.g. the UK).


there's no term where gold is best.

Good point.
It's been such a long time, I'd forgotten interest rates on savings ever existed!

So gold is only really better than cash outside of the financial system?
I keep mine as physical, outside the system, as an emergency fund.
I don't see it as an investment, because it doesn't produce a yield.

But in an emergency, it's quite easy to sell.

short_butt_sweet

Computer_Beginner wrote: »

Good point.
It's been such a long time, I'd forgotten interest rates on savings ever existed!

So gold is only really better than cash outside of the financial system?

yes, under the mattress, gold is going to beat cash in the long term, because of not getting interest on the cash.


with interest, cash tends to roughly keep up with inflation from year to year. interest rates have been a bit below inflation over the last few years. but at other times they've been a bit above inflation.


gold tends to roughly keep up with inflation in the very long term. from year to year, it's much more volatile - you can get large gains and losses.

I keep mine as physical, outside the system, as an emergency fund.

I don't see it as an investment, because it doesn't produce a yield.

But in an emergency, it's quite easy to sell.

what kind of emergency do you mean?


losing your job? collapse of the financial system? or ...?



it's easy to take gold into a metal dealer and sell it. but if the banking and payments systems had collapsed, it wouldn't be, because how could they pay you?

cashbackproblems

There are lots of people on here who dont understand the fiat currency problem at all, since 1971 most currencies have no value and its price comes from government manipulation e.g. printing more money - inflation! This has been getting out of hand for decades and governments debts/credit problems getting worse will only speed up the switch to alt currencies such as gold/crypto's

Malthusian

cashbackproblems wrote: »

since 1971 most currencies have no value

When was the last time you examined your beliefs and analysed whether the 99.9% of people who accept fiat currency for goods and services might be right and you might be wrong?

and its price comes from government manipulation e.g. printing more money - inflation!

Most inflation in developed economies has absolutely nothing to do with printing money. Inflation is an essential economic lubricant that helps people get on the housing ladder, reduces unemployment and prevents the much worse problem of deflation.

This has been getting out of hand for decades and governments debts/credit problems getting worse will only speed up the switch to alt currencies such as gold/crypto's

People who are concerned about the value of their money consistently reducing by around 2% a year are going to switch to assets that could lose 50% of their value in a year. Of course. Keep the faith, carry on hoddling, pay no attention to that guy exiting stage left with your real money.

Computer_Beginner

I don't think you should compare gold or silver to crypto.
Gold may lose some of its value relative to fiat, property, shares or tins of beans. But it will never become worthless.

Computer_Beginner

Its also worth remembering that government inflation figures are deliberately misleading, as they exclude housing costs.

The government has an obvious incentive to produce falsely low inflation figures, because it means they can keep wages, pensions and benefits lower.

False low inflation figures also mean interest rates can be kept low, keeping house prices high and benefiting mortgage lenders. Plus bringing in more stamp duty.

Banks, politicians and the mainstream media all acting together.

Computer_Beginner

cashbackproblems wrote: »

There are lots of people on here who dont understand the fiat currency problem at all, since 1971 most currencies have no value and its price comes from government manipulation e.g. printing more money - inflation! This has been getting out of hand for decades and governments debts/credit problems getting worse will only speed up the switch to alt currencies such as gold/crypto's

It's all part of the war on cash. Forcing people into the banking system, where they can be controlled by the government. Next step, negative interest rates...

Of course the politicians will have some reason to justify it. Probably a new war of some kind...

Computer_Beginner

short_butt_sweet wrote: »

yes, under the mattress, gold is going to beat cash in the long term, because of not getting interest on the cash.


with interest, cash tends to roughly keep up with inflation from year to year. interest rates have been a bit below inflation over the last few years. but at other times they've been a bit above inflation.


gold tends to roughly keep up with inflation in the very long term. from year to year, it's much more volatile - you can get large gains and losses.




what kind of emergency do you mean?


losing your job? collapse of the financial system? or ...?



it's easy to take gold into a metal dealer and sell it. but if the banking and payments systems had collapsed, it wouldn't be, because how could they pay you?

I don't know what emergency. Could be war, capital controls, cyber attack, sickness, unemployment, alien invasion.

I keep a box of half sovereigns. Hopefully even if all the computers were down, I could pay people using gold. I'm pretty sure people such as farmers, mechanics, shop keepers, butchers etc would accept gold. Especially those who already know and trust me, to some extent.