Are any of you buying silver for the long term?

I have been watching silver drop along with all of the other metals I bought some when it was about $17/oz then I got some more when it dropped to $16/oz.

Silver spot is now at 14.83 and I am considering buying some more, I have been buying it from a seller on ebay and it tend to run about 1.50-2.00 over spot and occasionally they will run a sale and its about $1 over spot.

Anyway if it reaches anywhere near its 2011 high of $48 you can triple your investment.

It seems like a good investment its just a matter of when the world economy will improve.

Anyone else buying silver?

You don't want the economy to improve on Precious Metals investments. They're bought mostly on emotion (Not all that sound or predictable), but the short of it is that if people think things will be terrible, they'll pay more, driving the price up.

I wouldn't put a lot into precious metals, but I have a little silver. The difference between a couple of hundred dollars of it and a few thousand is a big difference!

I will buy any silver coins I could for "melt value" (scrap) right now, but won't go out of my way to do so.

I am saving my silver batteries but I don't think I will process them anytime soon !!

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Originally Posted by ScrapGuru

I have been watching silver drop along with all of the other metals I bought some when it was about $17/oz then I got some more when it dropped to $16/oz.

Silver spot is now at 14.83 and I am considering buying some more, I have been buying it from a seller on ebay and it tend to run about 1.50-2.00 over spot and occasionally they will run a sale and its about $1 over spot.

Anyway if it reaches anywhere near its 2011 high of $48 you can triple your investment.

It seems like a good investment its just a matter of when the world economy will improve.

Anyone else buying silver?

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What happens if it hits $10/per and stays there for 15 years? Look at a long term (like a 30 year) chart. The breakdown from mid 2012 looks freaking terrible. Once support broke at 20ish....the ounce price could hit 12-10 easy. If you got spare cash to sit on it for maybe decades, you nibble away here and there. Just my opinion but no way I would be paying over spot in this free fall. Your already chasing it down........which is no bueno.

I buy a few silver Eagles when I have some found money. But the guy I got them from for the last three years has stopped selling them now. I look at them as a hedge and depending on your take of fiat money a long term store of wealth. As was said above, a strong dollar is not a friend of commodities.

There are two problems with precious metals as a commodity:

1. A lot of people buy gold "stocks". Paper gold isn't gold.

2. If the currency system were to completely collapse, precious metals are worth whatever producers want them to be. You can't eat gold or silver. You can eat wheat, though.

I think buying it as an investment can be a good idea, if you anticipate a weakening of the economy (Thus raising the value of the commodity), but as a means of survival, I question it. A lot of the people purchasing it do it on basis of emotion (Fear). Investing into emotions isn't a stable plan. Plus, a farmer who has wheat, or a mechanic who has skills, will have more wealth.

Just my $0.02

matador: "If you're alive, thank a farmer."

Well, as we all know very well, gold and silver have industrial/commercial values. Metals like copper, aluminum, titanium, carbide, all are pretty good metrics of actual world demand. It ebbs and flows but if you draw a line across the mean point of every month for a year you can pretty well track how active the world production economy really is.

I bank on carbide, it is down now, and I bought some carbide at prices near double what I am buying now, at that time I was selling carbide short while prices were high and only keeping what I didn't directly pay for like sludge and filters. I am still buying carbide now and then but am NOT selling short. Why would I? Carbide is a production item, meaning it has value in it's use, directly so. I can hold on to it long term and bank that it is just about inflation proof in a five or ten year span.

I add a small amount of silver to my stack each month by force of habit. I fully expect that I will have to hold on for another 5-20 years before it is up high enough for me to want to sell. What price would that be? It depends on HOW it moves. It is hard to explain judgment and intuition gained after having looked at well over a million stock charts. Sometimes you see a move that gets the crowd excited and your gut just says "Not for me!" If silver does break above $50, it would be the first time since January, 1980 (when it was only there briefly). That could be a real battleground. But if for some reason it is able to break $55 and stay there for at least several days, wow, then it could run MUCH HIGHER (IMHO). Keep in mind that the $50ish high in 1980 is equal to something like $130 now- adjusted for inflation.


Also, if JP Morgan (which reportedly has a huge long/short position in silver) is able to gracefully get out of their short position and then try to push the metal higher, it would be very interesting to see what would happen to the price.


I remember an old saying "There are lots of charts at the bottom of the ocean." That is just a way of saying that if you use technical analysis (charts) to trade precious metals, you need to be VERY PATIENT (or stage your way in) or you can get absolutely crushed!


Another point on silver- we've only really had one exciting time with it in many years and that was from late summer, 2010 until Spring, 2011 when it peaked at very close to $50 in late night trade on a Sunday night. In other words, expect years of doldrums punctuated by short bursts of excitement. That is not something most people want to be a part of. I do it as a diversification thing.