.999 Fin Gold Bullion Bars
The precious metals market took a beating the last month of 2011. Gold & silver, both, had corrective pull backs leading into the new year. Many analysts speculated and reported many different scenarios on what caused the correction. Opinions are varied as to what the causes were and where the future lies for the precious metals market. I am not an investment broker, analyst or speculator. All I am is a jeweler, pawnbroker and coin enthusiast. Since 1985 I have been active in the jewelry industry, designing, making a repairing fine jewelry. In 1993, I merged my jewelry business into the pawn industry. The pawn industry allowed me to to utilize my jewelry knowledge and also expand into buying and selling gold and silver on a daily basis. Naturally, silver and gold coins were readily available as customers looked to either add to their collection or sell when they felt the time was right.
This myriad of resources has afforded me a first-hand look at the inner workings of the the jewelry, pawn, coin and precious metals industries. My viewpoints on precious metals are strictly from my hand-on experience with gold and silver. I get asked almost daily from my walk-in and email customers where I think gold and silver are heading. Quite frankly, my guess is just as good as anyone else’s and it’s just that: a guess. But, in my humble opinion, I think that we have not seen the all-time highs in gold and silver as we head into 2012. Let me explain.
For the past 127 months in a row, gold has been on a constant rise in value. Silver has followed pretty close behind. The recent increase in both of the metal’s value has been attributed to a few causes, such as the our nation’s unrealistic debt, The sub-prime mortgage collapse, ballooning unemployment, zero employment growth, European’s insolvency and the Middle East civil unrest. Each one of these unfortunate events lent their part in making world financial markets very unstable and frightening. Investors quickly turned to the “safe haven” of the two precious metals: gold and silver. As the boom developed, many institutional investors, fund managers and speculators jumped in and the rest is history. Soon, the buzz around the street was gold and silver. Many coffee clutches began discussing the new daily highs and common individuals started to jump in, mostly on emotion and panic. This only drove the prices higher. The problem was toward the end of the high peak of $1,900 an ounce for gold and $48.00 for silver, what was driving the prices so high was uninformed, speculative buying from average citizens. Soon the bubble burst and both metals took a dive, leaving many bewildered.
Over the next couple of months, both metals hovered at relatively lower levels than projected. Then both gold and silver seemed poised for a rebound, but then in December, 2011, both the metals plummeted in value and it looked like the bears were going to take over. At this point, I advised anyone who asked my opinion to either hold on to what they had or to begin buying more at these depressed prices. Why? Quite simply.
Remember those world-wide disaster scenarios I mentioned above? They all still exist today. The U.S. debt still exists. Governments are printing more money than their presses can handle. Europe is still broke and no sign of recovery is on the horizon. The Middle East is still fighting their worst civil unrest in decades. The American people have lost all confidence in our legislative branch to accomplish anything. The list goes on and on. So, my point is all those factors that allowed or made gold and silver to rise are still in place. So, until some of or all of these issues get resolved, gold and silver are still going to increase in value.
People panicked at the sudden decrease and they sold on emotion, just as they bought on emotion. A correction was long overdue. At year’s end, many fund managers sell funds that have realized a nice profit. This looks good on their balance sheet. Some of the selling was due to “margin calls.” This is when fund managers have to pay in cash for their purchases they previously made with “credit.” In order to do this, they sometimes have to sell their precious metals holdings to cover their debt. This is usually in the tens of millions of dollars, so if a few fund mangers do this in a short period of time, the metals will go down in value. Why the huge swings up and down? This is sometimes caused when “bargain hunters” start buying gold and silver when the market suddenly drops. When purchases outnumber sellers, the market goes back up.
To put it all in perspective, one must research the causes for the rises in the precious metals market. Once you determine what caused this, ask yourself what is the future of those causes. Are they waning? Are they still present? Are solutions or peace treaties being developed? Is this U.S. Congress helping or hurting America? The answer lies within these questions.
I’m still buying because I know the government can print money all it wants, but it can’t print more gold and silver. If you have questions or comments on this article, please feel free to email me at plewin@decaturjewelry.com. Thank you for viewing my website and reading my articles.
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