Investing in precious metals

[festus]

I keep hearing about folks buying precious metals instead of stocks. This is sound advice. I have been investing in precious metals for years...4140 arsenal grade steel, copper, lead and brass. I figure these will be priceless after the SHTF.............

[HK4U]

+1. A little food would be in order to.

[festus]

I have been storing plenty of stuff for the coming winter. How about you grasshopper?

[HK4U]

I keep hearing about folks buying precious metals instead of stocks. This is sound advice. I have been investing in precious metals for years...4140 arsenal grade steel, copper, lead and brass. I figure these will be priceless after the SHTF.............

I have been storing plenty of stuff for the coming winter. How about you grasshopper?
[I]Some yes but could use more. Perhaps while the government is in a bail out mood they would like to help me with my preperations.[/I

[PascalFleischman]

I keep hearing about folks buying precious metals instead of stocks. This is sound advice. I have been investing in precious metals for years...4140 arsenal grade steel, copper, lead and brass. I figure these will be priceless after the SHTF.............

The rate of return of precious metals over 5 years or more is relatively low. They're too volatile to justify purchasing for the short term, and are often beaten by even the worst mutual funds. The "school of thought" is that when the dollar is worthless, gold or silver will always be an accepted form of currency. My take on this, is that if the dollar DOES become worthless, few people will have liquid forms of gold anyway. Much of the "Buy Gold" stuff you see is often stocks in gold mining/refining/forming companies. When the dollar is worthless, goods and services will be more important than a shiny coin.

Buy mutual funds.

[PascalFleischman]

....and ammo.

[DarrellM5]

I'm investing in:
Large quantities of ammo and reloading supplies
Food supplies and water purification stuff
Survival gear
Mutual funds
Physical gold and silver

and

Lots of Training

[boyzoi]

The rate of return of precious metals over 5 years or more is relatively low. They're too volatile to justify purchasing for the short term, and are often beaten by even the worst mutual funds. The "school of thought" is that when the dollar is worthless, gold or silver will always be an accepted form of currency. My take on this, is that if the dollar DOES become worthless, few people will have liquid forms of gold anyway. Much of the "Buy Gold" stuff you see is often stocks in gold mining/refining/forming companies. When the dollar is worthless, goods and services will be more important than a shiny coin.

Buy mutual funds.

buying into mining companies etc is no different that any other company, if the company goes under so does your paper....silver and gold have been used in value trading for 1000's of years and likely will never be worth nothing. investing in precious metals is now expecially a very good investment. over the same period of time silver has out performed gold and is still affordable for most. had you bought silver earlier in this year at around $10 an ounce (where it is now) you could have sold it if you wanted to turn your money for about $22 an ounce, not sure about you but thats a pretty good move Im holding for other reasons, but silver in particular IMO will have substantial worth over being shiney as it has more industrial uses than gold. the industrail nations ( China India) are growing and will drive the value, talking about having physical possesion here, not paper in companies.......as a side, the market, using the one day lose of 777, at the same time had stocks in certain sectors that had 50% and higher increases. it al depends on where you are. Personally, I'm buying right now, as much as I can in the appropriate sectors.JMHO

[Red Hat]

Rule of thumb, never buy precious metals when the dollar is weak only buy when the dollar is strong! When the dollar falls precious metals increase in value as it gets stronger it decreases. If you buy now you run a very good chance of losing up to 50% when the dollar recovers.

[festus]

My idea of precious metal are the items used in the MFG of firearms and ammo.