A Night Unremembered
13 years ago
Friday, July 19, 2013
The Next Big Thing!
There is an ad for some precious metals broker that I have been hearing for some time on the radio. This ad is not touting gold... no, no.... it is touting the "next big thing" and it's silver!
I may not know enough about this ad because I tend to be laughing too hard by the time it's halfway over to give it the attention it thinks it deserves.
It talks about a silver shortage. A shortage so severe that they allege that Apple had to halt production of one of its products because it ran out of silver. It also alleges that the US Mint had to stop minting some coins because of this shortage. Never mind that you cannot find any report anywhere that this shortage actually exists. Go ahead, Google "silver shortage"... I'll wait.
Now, this brokerage is minting something they call "silver polar bears." This is a coin with a polar bear image on it. It has no currency value, it cannot be spent. It is not legal currency. And, because the silver shortage has increased the demand for these "coins" so much, they are going to give away some of them to anyone purchasing silver from them.
That's right, there is a huge silver shortage that has upped the demand for these useless coins so much that they have decided to give them away.
Isn't this a great country?
Update: The news just reported that salvagers just found 61 tons of silver. I wonder what that will do to the price?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
No harm investing in precious metals in this environment - including silver.
A simple thing to do is take the price of silver (or gold) at its peak back in the late 70's and run it through an inflation calculator to see what that is worth today. You will find that precious metals aren't really a hedge against inflation.
Perhaps no but there was a nice run up in price - and people are buying it to hedge against the dollar.
Diversify. Own real estate. Some stock. Precious metals. That sort of thing.
Sure, but the time to buy was before the run up, not after. Real estate is a good opportunity now but we do not know when it will pay off; maybe in 5 years, maybe 10.
Hedge against dollars? And what will you convert whatever you invest in to?
I am not an astute investor. What I am is a cynic but one that knows the difference between a possible opportunity and a sales pitch that is designed to increase the profits of the sales people.
Gold, for example, was a great buy at $500 and a good buy at $800. It was a terrible buy at $1800 but the precious metals sales pitch was that it would reach $2400 even as it was sliding down.
Silver was a great buy at $7 per ounce, a good buy at $14, but not at all that attractive at $19.
All you say is true and rational.
But as long as people still believe it has value they will continue to buy.
All I know is the guys I know with coin continue to buy.
The 'flight to quality' as it's called.
Me? Not enough liquidity to buy. If I did, not sure what I would do. Even when the price was lower.
The "guys with coin" can afford to. If one has several hundred thousand (or more), a 2%-3% return overall is fine. They can afford to diversify. Those of us with more modest amounts of disposable income need to be careful. Spreading it out is a good idea but it also reduces the net growth. Caution is the watchword for me.
Indeed, it's all about needs reflected by reality.
Post a Comment