When I first got into silver as an investment, I used to keep a really close eye on the spot price and attempted my own regular analysis of factors influencing the price.
These days, I’m a little bit more relaxed about it all and check in every now and then.
Preparation
I think the value of compiling and maintaining your own analysis cannot be overstated, if nothing else it helps keep you focussed and informed so that when a decision is required, you have the benefit of being at least in some way prepared.
In my case I think the real value has come from a number of sources.
Information overload
I’ve learned how to filter out a lot of the hype, particularly that brand of hype that is aimed at influencing you in a certain direction – there’s so much stuff flying around out there and you need to be able to discard stuff that is not going to help you. Not that it won’t help anyone else, just that it’s not for everyone.
I mean, there’s just so much to take in!
We are not alone…
Fortunately I have learned that there are people who are able and willing to help. One is Nathan at renaissancemen.org
These kinds of resources are really helpful for gaining some sort of understanding of commonly agreed factors influencing the pricing of silver.
What he has done with his metrics dashboard alone is really great – way to go, Nathan!
Over at kitco.com there’s a stack of solid commentary of different styles. I was saddened to learn of the passing of Peter Hug recently, he will be sorely missed.
Books
A different group of authors mainly produce books and that’s a good way to get some context on a range of schools of thought, usually regarding the longer term and bigger picture. Here’s where we get into the effects of inflation and money printing and the very worrying fact that no unbacked fiat currency has ever survived! Pretty sure renaissancemen.org has all of that covered…(but most of the authors involved are good at getting their work noticed so it’s easy to find).
Charts
It’s hard to go past a chart, though.
Since I’m just a hack, I’m basically useless without a chart.
Anyway, I was wondering what to do with silver at the moment, buy or sell ?
Where are we ?
We’re just over a year into the COVID-19 crisis currently. Things appeared much worse back then, but not so bad now – we’re in pretty rough shape, still it could go even more pear shaped and to my way of thinking, the silver price has reflected all that.
Biased
My feeling is that we’ve seen the state of the world reflected in the spot and the indications are that it isn’t going any lower any time soon. Of course I don’t know but there’s no reason why it won’t run up to AUD 36 or more – I guess that’s my bias – a move up would certainly help support the price of low grade sterling coins like Australian florins!
No good news
Sometimes it’s better to do nothing – one thing that is crystal clear is that nobody has any grasp of the timing of the next big financial disaster, only a belief in its inevitability – not for nothing is economics known as a dismal science.
I mean that there is some pretty cogent work showing that world finance is a parlous state of affairs and some twist is in the offing, bearing inexhorably upon us.
The consequences of allowing a state to control its own supply of money appear to always be disastrous.
Alternatives
I think that’s a large part of the appeal of crypto currency – the fact that it could be independent of government and work as a store of value, one of the things that silver coins definitely do.
But right now I’m playing it safe, mostly hanging on to what I’ve got and keeping a weather eye open because another thing that we all can rely on is that things won’t stay the same for all that long, that’s why crypto’s at least on the radar.
pre1946silver.com 