[theluckycountry]

Why Gold Could Be Your Best Investment in 2024

Just a headline, one of many coming out now Gold has skyrocketed. Personally I would advise people not to buy Gold at this time, or ever! It's really to late for them, this ship sailed long ago and though it may preserve their purchasing power the average person will be unhappy that it doesn't go to the moon and give them a lifestyle of the rich and famous. Better for the average person to just stay the course with whatever they have been hoping in to date. Sure most will lose out but that's the gambling mindset in today's society at work, and they will have plenty of company scouring the supermarkets for specials on rice and boxes of cereal.

Gold is not for everyone, and if you doubt it's for you, you're right!

[theluckycountry]

$AU 3,780.98 A new all time high for Gold in aussie.

[theluckycountry]

As Gold in $US rises above $2500 It's a good time to pause and look at it's performance over the past 20 years, past the IT bubble, the housing collapse and the GFC collapse, the Shale oil and covid SPACS and now the EV collapse. All those paper markets have been a roller-coaster ride and if you got in at the right time, and more importantly, got out before the collapses, you may have done well. But of course in the real world that rarely happens.

Why do we put money into these places? Because we are saving for retirement, obviously, and because we know the interest paid by banks over time doesn't allow our savings to keep pace with inflation.

Enter Gold. In $US



No it doesn't pay a dividend that accrues to see the investment grow, the compound effect. But what's that typically, 5%, 8% added per annum? Over twenty years Gold has appreciated 25% per annum on average. Far better and more than enough to offset the lack of compounded interest. And of course you don't have to worry about it "Collapsing" like WeWork shares or tesla shares.

$256,000. A quarter of a million dollars, that's what you'd have if you'd invested $50k into gold back 20 years ago. Is a quarter of a million tax free enough to retire on, to live off of for say 20 years? Perhaps not, I myself would want double that. But Gold isn't a one off purchase, You buy it as you have means and as you salary rises it takes the sting out of the rising price. At some point you say enough is enough and you just forget about it, leave it hidden in your safe or buried in the yard.

You don't have to check your App every day, or call you're 'broker' every six months. You don't have to worry about covid events or changing technology or faltering economies or any of that because Gold surpasses all that and more. In times of war and great depressions it's value rises even more! It's the no-brainer investment in your portfolio.

Oh houses down here have done well, 100% per decade and you can rent them and so the cost isn't as much upfront, but 200% isn't 512% and those homes come with many costs over time, the big one being the capital gains cost at sale. Plenty of people invest in houses, I have knows quite a few. I have watched them scramble to cut taxes at end of life, watched others lose all by being over-extended in a falling market and higher rates era. It's no dream run I assure you. I knew a spec-builder years ago who had kept 3 beautiful homes for his retirement, he was 80 when I met him, a bitter old man who refused to sell them to fund a lavish retirement because he refused to pay the capital gains taxes. You won't have that problem with a "coin collection" it doesn't accrue capital gains.

[theluckycountry]

Amid all the turmoil of the past 5 years we have this, and a new all time high.



Not that an all time high means a lot when inflation is factored in but it does prove that Gold keeps pace with inflation, that's it's secret. Shares in Tesla, a market favorite, are down 40% over the roughly same period. Are they paying dividends? Well you'd hope so but you're savings are still 40% down, and really, what hope for the future now the Chinese have undercut them? Musk is not his shareholders though, he's a lot smarter

The stock tumbled after the CEO’s sale and fell further when electric-vehicle maker said it had delivered fewer cars than expected. ...Under SEC rules at the time he didn't have to disclose on the form whether he was using such a plan. Mr. Musk has sold more than $39 billion of Tesla shares since the stock's November 2021 peak, including almost $23 billion last year, in part to fund his $44 billion purchase of Twitter Inc.

The first part of that story is established fact, the second is conjecture, since X is a private company and not open to public scrutiny. Very wise. It's safe to assume he did in fact put some billions into the project but since he himself has never declared how much it's obvious his backers put in a lot more. What is X? Nothing more than a serious effort to control social media. And who would want to control that? We all know the answer.

Gold is not like a stock or a bond even, you don't have to fear that one day it will collapse in value and wipe out your hard earned savings. It's true that the instrument falls into bear markets but as long as you don't buy in during a runup top you'll be ok. Once it retracts it's always higher than before the public mania. And when are these bear markets? Always during times of low inflation and when paper digital markets are building into bubbles.

It's off the chart to the Left but in 1970 Gold was $35 an ounce, a decade later it settled out at $300/ounce. Not a bad return for a decades wait. Even if you'd bought in 1975 you'd still have protected your savings from the ravages of inflation. That was a bear market for the stock market, that when American manufacturing was being hollowed out. The end of an era.



What lies ahead? Well considering the debt (which similar in scope to the debt burden of the late 1920's) we could see a repricing of gold even higher! But either way it's a safe bet when everything else is tied to the derivatives complex and every corporation is just as indebted as the Government and the consumer. Real Wealth doesn't exist anymore in our financial markets. It's all just promises to pay based on endless growth, tied to cheap oil naturally.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk- ... 1674177642

[AdamB]

Gold is not like a stock or a bond even, you don't have to fear that one day it will collapse in value and wipe out your hard earned savings.

Interesting point. If gold has the ability to fluctuate in the market place (just like the markets do), and it does, then its value can decrease (collapse is such a overkill word for the same thing) no differently than market tracking investments . Your charts demonstrate just that, surprised you didn't notice those downward trends?

Anyway, lets play the "what are my Kruggerands worth nowadays versus my market investments?" game.

I don't even remember exactly what year I was talked into collecting this gold, pre import ban in the US, someone I was working with offshore, talkative doomer type during the time of residual US inflation Jimmy left the US economy worth, the world was a scary place, Cold War...blah blah blah... I fell for the same salespitch that the unoriginal still use today, and I admit it, I was suckered in by it. I was young, and dumb, what can I say? However, to my credit, I knew better than to trust a doomer even then and understood that the ebbs and flow of time work for both gold and markets. So I bought some of the gold he was selling to fund his charter fishing business or something and became a gold investor. And within 6 months, began doing the same thing in market tracking funds, nothing stock specific like VT used to discuss, I'm not market prognosticator, I like fire and forget. So I did. And still do today.

So S&P tracking funds and be done with it, never done an individual stock in my life.

Lets start with the average gold price in 1982. $376/oz. S&P 500 was maybe 102 or some such?

Gold closed today at 2587/oz. S&P closed at 5595.

So... I'll show my work...mousepad I'm counting on you to check my math here....

Gold Multiples = 2587/376 = 6.88
S&P500 Multiples= 5595/102 = 54.85

Would anyone like to guess which of my investment strategies is now worth more (no guessing necessary for anyone who can do math of course)?

PS: I will admit that the gold has a bit of fascination to it, just sitting there being....you know....touchable and shiny and heavy....but that doesn't make its value anywhere near the single piece of paper in my desk detailing how 42 year old market tracking funds turned out.

But because it is cool, I'll still cheer it on! Cool has it own value! Just not enough to make up for such lousy investing performance over the past four decades.

[theluckycountry]

In the 1960's there was very little inflation, these coins were issued in 1966, a commemorative coin put into circulation when Australia switched to the decimal system of currency. They were 800 fine, or 800 parts per thousand fine silver. They weren't a gift! The price of an ounce of silver was about $1.50 and three of these coins contained a troy ounce of it. They are about an inch and a half in diameter. And just between you and I, they are Beautiful. Even decades old they shine with a luster and sing when you flip them.



They were only made in one year, 1966, but they minted tens of millions of them. By the end of decade they had all but been withdrawn from circulation though many millions had been hoarded for their silver content. Fifty cents in 1966, ten of them adding up to $5. A lot of money in 66 I assure you. Today ten of those coins are sold for $200 Australian through the dealers. And that's not a numismatic price, they are not rare, at $45/ troy oz that's what the silver in them is basically worth (+ commissions).

That is a forty fold increase in value and it basically shows how much our currency has been devalued by it's inflation. By the trillions of dollars that have been created since 1966. A Trillion. It's easy to say but the number defies daily comprehension.

One million inches is about 16 miles. One billion inches is 16,000 miles. And one trillion inches, that's 16 million miles. The average distance from the Earth to the Moon is 238,857 miles.

We all know how long an inch is. Now imagine going to the Moon and back 33 times, inch by inch. It's easy to create money, free basically, but it's not easy to produce Silver. Without oil in fact silver would be very very hard to produce, almost impossible now since all the big plays are gone and you have to process a ton of ore just to produce a single ounce or so. 1 Oz = 31 grams

Native silver is scarce. Most of the world's silver supply comes from ore that contains low percentages of the precious metal. For example, Sorby Hills, Australia's largest undeveloped silver-lead-zinc deposit, contains an estimated 35 grams of silver per ton of ore.

So is silver worth investing in? At this point, a hell of lot more than Gold at current prices. Why? Because for nearly all recorded history the gold silver price ratio was about 15:1 Today it's 87:1
The reason for this is simple price manipulation, and not for any nefarious reasons either. It, like oil, is artificially kept low because it is so necessary for modern industrial life. You can't have it going too high, it would cripple industry. I agree with this strategy, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to pay 50% extra for my solar panels. But that just shows how great an investment it actually is. It's vital, and it can only go one way in price over time, as the charts show.



Sure there was a bubble 16 years ago, that was the GFC, the end of the world as we knew it, everyone freaked out, RAN FOR SAFETY! Then silver settled back to it's steady climb when money printing resumed. Why did it go back up, why does food go up? New cars go up? Just don't buy Silver in a bubble top and you'll be fine and it's certainly not in one now. Like Gold it has a 5000 year history too, it aint going away, unlike pets.com and WeWork and 10,000 other investments. It aint going anywhere, but up over time.



Why Is Silver Found With Lead And Zinc?
https://boabmetals.com/blog/why-silver- ... lead-zinc/

[theluckycountry]

Saudi Central Bank Caught Secretly Buying 160 Tonnes of Gold in Switzerland

The Saudis have joined other Asian countries in ditching their long-term sensitivity to the gold price. Evidence suggests the Saudi central bank has been covertly buying 160 tonnes of gold in Switzerland since early 2022, contributing to the current gold bull market.

Although the Saudis played a key role in the birth of the global dollar standard in the early 1970s, this time around they might even become a lynchpin for its dissolution...

Introduction

Until recently, Saudi Arabia’s gold demand would decline when the gold price went up and strengthen when the price went south. This dampened volatility in the gold market, which for many decades was ruled by the West.

Ever since the West immobilized Russia’s dollar assets in February 2022, those with diplomatic disagreements with the West are increasingly exchanging their dollars for physical gold. Saudi Arabia is the latest country—after China and Thailand—of which I have found cross-border trade statistics showing it has shifted from being price sensitive to a price driver...

...Just like the reported gold reserves by the PBoC, the number put out by SAMA is purely political. By hiding how much precious metal the nation truly owns, the House of Saud avoids openly upsetting the United States.

But the evolution of countries in Asia storing more and more of their trade surpluses in gold—a time-tested neutral and sanction proof reserve asset—is clear. Next to 160 tonnes by SAMA, I calculate the PBoC bought 1,600 tonnes since the war in Ukraine. Both central banks, the former of the most influential country in the oil market and the latter of the second largest economy globally, must be confident in what direction the gold market is headed.

Full Article
https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/0 ... and-003458

[AdamB]

Like Gold it has a 5000 year history too, it aint going away, unlike pets.com and WeWork and 10,000 other investments. It aint going anywhere, but up over time.

Just like US market investments during your, and my, entire lifetime.

Except better.

I noticed you didn't have a milliseconds thought for the math of it, as I demonstrated. Was it because you don't know any, and therefore are intellectually helpless....as usual...when any math, logic, science or inkling of analytic thought gets involved?