Well i'm thinking it's about time to invest in the market and I feel that metals might be the best opportunity for me. However there is quite a bit of complicated stuff to deal with from what type of metals to how to go about investing. After doing some research i've narrowed things down to Platinum, Palladium or Copper as my choice.

1. Platinum

Pros - Very high price and is always used in a variety of things. It is also a noble metal and isn't likely to tarnish too much if at all. Don't have to worry about special storage when dealing with this metal just need to put it in something to keep it protected.
Cons - VERY VERY expensive metal to deal with and costs about $1800 for 1 ounce of the stuff.

2. Palladium

Pros - High price, but not as high as gold or Platinum so more can be acquired. Have to keep it reasonably protected, but still isn't prone to tarnishing like Copper.
Cons - Expensive, but as mentioned not as high as Gold or Platinum. Goes for about $850 to $880 per ounce

3. Copper

Pros - Very cheap and easily acquired from a variety of sources. US coins before 1982 contain about 88% to 90% copper with the rest being Zinc.
Cons - Has to be protected due to tarnishing and it is illegal to melt down coins for their metal due to new law. People caught melting down coins can be imprisoned for 5 years and pay up to $10k in fines with all coins in their possession being seized/revoked.

Dealing with Precious metals and metals having them stolen means you lost your investment so that is an inherent risk with all of them.

Second thing I learned was about investing in IRAs *Think IRAs*, mutual funds, or company stocks that deal with mining of metals. The company stocks of mining are tricky due to a company having to deal with labor and equipment costs as well as political problems if investing in overseas stuff.


Want to ask what others think about investing in Metals and if the Bullion/Coins route is ok to go or if I should stick with Mutual Funds with metals/Company Stocks. As to the "Amount" i'm going to acquire it will vary depending upon what I go for, but it won't be some astronomical amount.


Side Note: If some are interested if you do a search for Platinum metal and look at the images from google the company that does the Gundam Franchise made a Gundam Figure out of pure platinum. svcker is about 5 inch tall with a diamond in its head, weighs about 3lbs and costs $250 grand (about 30 million yen).

My wife and I have an IRA and about a third of it is invested in precious metals. Over the past few years this has done well and since it's a general fund it's spread across a number of different metals - there's no chance that it will suddenly shoot up but there's also little risk that it will plummet.

It sounds to me that rather than investing in precious metals you're thinking about actually acquiring them. Personally I'm not a fan of this, in general metal's value comes from it's use so stockpiling only works if you have large amounts and you're banking that it will shoot up.

I must compliment you for not considering gold. The gold market is strong at the moment but it also has a habit of crashing. I'm also skeptical of a commodity that so many places are trying to sell off at the moment, when dozens of places are talking about investing in gold but they're perfectly happily to sell it to you one wonders why: if it's really going to skyrocket wouldn't they hold on to it themselves?

Ya I really thought hard about gold and i'm kind of kicking myself for not buying when it was $800 to $900 per ounce. Right now it is very high at $1400, but my gut is telling me in about 1 to 2 years it'll drop down to like $700 possibly $800. When it starts to go south China will probably sell what they got and this might cause a cascading effect devaluing the price of it.

Personally i'm just looking into my options and acquiring precious metals maybe one of them, but as noted it is dangerous. If it gets lost or stolen i'm essentially up the creek for whatever I paid for that bar which makes it risky. However I do like the fact that I have something tangible in my hands to hold.

Have you considered investing in water?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089040017753.htm

"water is the new oil" :shrug:

You will be a fool if you don't have clandestine meltings of coins.

Seriously though, do you plan on physically acquiring them, or investing into a company associated with them? You did not really give a definitive response.

lol no it won't. Unless people stop hoarding it and start selling it and the value of currency starts going up, gold will continue to increase in value for some time to come. Even if China sells everything they have in stock I don't see it making a huge impact on the market price of gold.

Honestly the best thing to invest in right now (longterm) would be silver. Right now people are hoarding gold but silver is consumed. The upward fluctuation you've been seeing in the value of gold will begin to happen in silver here pretty soon.

Most precious metals aren't that good of an investment if you're looking to see a large return, especially when compared to bank interest rates and inflation.
If you're buying actual quantities of the metal itself you also have to factor in the cost of storage, because precious metals usually take a comparatively long time to see a decent return, and you'd be stupid to store it anywhere other than an insured vault.

Depends on how you define "large." If you had invested $400.00 worth into gold back towards the end of 2005 and sold it today, you would have got roughly 3 times your money back. That's a pretty good return already. If you were to hold on to it till say 2020 I'd predict you would get twice that amount. Precious metals today are quite an excellent investment considering the current day economy. Platinum, gold, palladium, silver, are all valuable due to the liquidity they possess, and are considered natural hard currency.


On interest rates yes. If you're an individual who likes to use that credit card a lot or take out loans with long term payment plans you can totally obliterate the profit yield of your investments. It's up to the investor to spend even the non invested money wisely.

On inflation. There are direct and indirect effects on the market price of commodities like gold. Directly because as inflation continues to rise, the value of currency goes down. Therefor it takes larger quantities of cash to make a purchase in the marketplace (this much is obvious). Though due to indirect consequence, since inflation causes currency value to drop people will begin to seek items with hard value (ie gold). As people begin to do this more and more (hoarding) gold becomes more and more inaccessible and difficult to obtain (becomes more rare in a sense) and therefore more "valuable."

So as I said earlier, until the value of currency goes back up so people will stop hoarding gold, the "value" of items like gold will continue to rise. Though I don't see that happening anytime soon (especially here in the states). With the ever declining value of currency, if not imminent collapse of currency, commodities like gold will become virtually priceless. So in the grand scheme of things gold is an excellent investment (that is if you can afford 1420.75 per troy ounce).




I can't really comment on this if you're coming from another country, but if you're living in the US you'd be an idiot to store it anywhere, where you the owner, does not have direct physical control over it. I can promise you if you put it in a safety deposit box, or some "insured vault" your investment is going to mysteriously vanish in the face of impending economic collapse (and considering the economic instability and volatility today that's easily possible). If you choose to hold onto valuable commodities like gold, store it in a place where only you know it's location, and only you can access it. Because history shows in times of crisis and depression people (even the government) will steal your stuff.

To the OP if you're looking for good investments consider building up assets that puts your money to work and returns an income. Car washes, renting self storage units, small real estate investments to lease townhouses or duplexes, etc. There are things outside of commodity goods to invest in. But if you must invest into precious metals, please I beg you, invest into silver.

Well that's the thing I need to research it out as far as Bullion/Coins, Mutual Funds, and IRAs go exactly. Done a lot of research on physically acquiring Platinum and Palladium even finding a site that appears to be reputable to buy from. (Use the word "Appears" since I never 100% trust online sites) Copper is the one sticking point and it seems difficult to acquire a large sum of it then to actually find a place to sell it off.

I do agree though if I buy it Physically I will store it in a place I have easy access to and not a bank. Not only do I have to wait for "During hours" time it costs me money to keep it secured in that storage vault. This will diminish my return which kind of defeats the point of investing imho. As far as gold goes like I said it's a gut feeling and i'm just feeling that the price is going to drop. It might create a cascade effect devaluing the price of it and it might not that's the thing about investing ya never know. I thought about silver, but read that Gold and Silver tend to go up and down together so want to stay away from that.

Palladium seems like it might be the right thing to invest in since i'm learning more about research into Precious metals and their ability to convert water into H2 and O2.

Well just remember what I said if you ever change your mind, gold is valuable because it's being hoarded and silver is valuable because it is being consumed. Also considering the ever growing population, and the pushes in green technology (ie solar panels and what not), more and more silver is going to be used up. Right now the US alone consumes up about 5 million ounces of silver a year in just producing mirrors for things like solar energy. And silver isn't even being hoarded... yet. I predict by 2020-2030 time frame silver will be considered a hoarded precious metal and a highly demanded raw material making it more valuable than gold (possibly even platinum).

Keep in mind that what you are looking to engage in is not investment, but speculation. That is to say, getting any kind of return on your money is dependent upon there being someone else willing to buy the commodity at a higher price than you bought it for. Because of this you need to be aware that markets based on speculation can undergo large swings with little warning, and are very susceptible to forming bubbles (I'm of the opinion that the gold market is undergoing a massive bubble at the moment). Now, if you've got a good chunk of money burning a whole in your pocket that you're not worried about parting with if the market you choose to sink it into should suddenly crash, then there's nothing wrong with engaging in a bit of speculation (as the high risks also come with potentially high rewards). However, if you're only just starting to put together an investment portfolio then you'd probably be better off trying to put together a diversified porfolio of low and moderate risk investments that, while unlikely to jump significantly value over a year or two, will continue to grow steadily over several decades and provide you with a nice chunk of money to fall back on if your riskier investments and speculations don't pan out.

Well that's the thing as you noted people are going towards green technology and Platinum and Palladium are being researched into for this not just solar pannels. However as noted those two metals are extremely rare and quite expensive to work with. Yet platinum is always being consumed in Catalytic Converters for cars which keeps up demand. Also heard about them being used in Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology and other various ways to produce Hydrogen and Oxygen. With all of that said I don't doubt your prediction of silver being hoarded due to it being a precious metal and it might happen sooner than that maybe in 2015.



Unfortunately that is indeed the risk of investing in anything because you are speculating and "Guesstimating" how it will turn out. At the moment the only thing I have to go on is an educated guess from what i'm seeing in the past as well as my own gut feeling.

As to the money i'm investing it isn't burning a hole in my pocket per say, but I do feel that right now is the time to act because i've missed 2 opportunities already. My first one was when Oil prices were at $35 a barrel and knew I should have bought it yet I hesitated with it now being up near $100 a barrel. The second..."Blunder" I guess as you could call it was with gold and it being around $750 to $800 per ounce. Knew it was going to go up and followed it extensively for 3 months yet again I didn't act on it cause I was concerned about investing a large sum of money into it. As a result the money I could have invested into it could have nearly doubled its investment.

This time I will not fail to invest in the market and I may have to diversify myself. Maybe go for Platinum or Palladium and then purchase the remaining stuff in Silver since I believe it and Copper are being used in Super Conductor research technologies.

how about gold?

Well, some clarity....

1. METALS are not an "investment." If you are foolish enough to think currency = money, then yes, you can see this as an "investment" but absent a price flux based purely on speculation (as some would say gold is experiencing right now), you are NEVER gaining value. Rather, the change in "per ounce" rates for any given metal is based on fluctuation on the value of the currency being used to trade it. An ounce of gold today buys what an ounce of gold would have bought 50, 100, 200 years ago. Precious metals are a hedge against economic instability in the currency. If you have 1,000 ounces of gold and tomorrow the currency collapses, you retain the value of your savings in gold. With "currency" your life savings evaporate overnight.

2. POSSESSION = 9/10th of the law. Most "tax sheltered" arrangements for precious metals (so you can roll over your IRA, 401k, etc. without a tax liability), require either physical metals held by a trust company (so you can't get it without paying taxes or waiting until you're old enough to draw without tax penalty) or they are basically giving you "paper gold"...a certificate. My mom has holdings in silver using the later method....not bad for sheltering her investments from currency instability, but it's still in the possession of another person. In the event of an economic collapse, it's not in her hands to do anything with.

3. Growth in precious metals is only accomplished by lending to someone and being repaid, with interest, in precious metals. They do not produce more of their own kind just by sitting there.

4. If you want to acquire, even at these prices, silver is the best bang for your buck because silver and gold have a traditional 17:1 ratio. This has been grossly distorted for some time now. One of two things must happen. Either the price of silver (per ounce) will explode up to it's proper 17:1 ratio to gold's per ounce price, or gold will come crashing down. The odds of gold coming down are quite slim. Gold is an indication of the health of a nation's currency. Silver is a prime indication of how imminent the danger is of a nation's currency collapsing.

Hope that helps. I do not sell precious metals nor services dealing with the same, but I'm following these trends very closely.

On the other hand, if you buy it when its at or below its long-term average price and aren't after a quick buck, you're not going to lose money with precious metals. Unlike stocks, the only way they'll become completely worthless if if we lose all manufacturing capabilities and interest in shiny things. I'll let you come to your own conclusions as t the likelihood of that .

If you don't buy during a bubble, you can still at least get your money back as long as you're willing to wait for prices to normalise. Metals have intrinsic value.

The key difference between speculation and investment is that with investment the money you put in is actually being used to create additional wealth which you then have ownership of, while with speculation no additional wealth is being created- you're simply holding on to whatever commodity you bought and hoping you can find someone in the future willing to pay you more than you paid for it. A clear cut example of an actual investment is buying stock in a fairly mature company that pays dividends. Your money buys you partial ownership of the company and the wealth that it generates, and a portion of the wealth generated is then paid back to you as dividends. Additionally, while there is certainly no shortage of stocks that are overvalued due to speculation, stocks that are accurately valued are a reflection of the company's assets and earnings, so there's far less volatility in mid to long term stock price due to speculation.

Basically the dangerous volatility in speculation comes from the fact that changes in price are almost entirely due to a massive mind game that all of the speculators are playing with each other. Even when there's an actual underlying market for the commodity (such as the use of various metals in electronics, jewelry, etc) this tends to be dwarfed by the effects of speculation, and underlying shifts in the actual market are greatly amplified by speculation, making the price swings both larger and more difficult to predict. What's likely to be a coming example of this with precious metals is the effect that China's actions will have on the prices of many metals. China is the primary producer of many rare earth metals, but recently has indicated a willingness to halt the export of these metals as part of their dike-waving contest with other countries. In the short term this has the potential to cause massive price spikes with these metals, but in the longer term there's a good possibility that China's actions will result in other countries ramping up their own mining activities, which could very well send prices of these metals tumbling. However, the timing of these price swings won't be driven by actual market supplies of these metals, but by speculator reactions to various bits of news concerning this whole thing. And unless you are keeping a very close eye on any relevant news and also have a good understanding of the mindset of other speculators then the first indications you're likely to get of any relevant changes is when you see the prices of the metals you've bought suddenly spiking or falling.


This is all too easy a psychological game for amateur investors and speculators to play with themselves. These particular details stick out in your mind for obvious reasons, but there are probably quite a few other investments or speculation opportunities that you also had a "gut feeling" about at the time, but don't remember because absolutely nothing came of those opportunities (and would have either taken you nowhere or put you in a hole). If you engage in investment or speculation you want to make sure you actually have some understanding of what you're doing, otherwise you might as well just head to Vegas with your money as you're likely to see similar results.


Metals have no more intrinsic value than any other commodity or asset. Strip away all the speculation and there's only the market price that supply and demand of the metal would dictate, which tends to be far, far below the speculation prices. However, you are correct that going by something like the inflation-adjusted median price of a metal can help to reduce risk in the mid to long term, at least as far as losing money is concerned, although there's still the opportunity cost of not having that money to invest in other things during the time you're waiting for the price to get back to where you bought in. However, there's still the danger the changes in actual use of the metal or in the economics of the supply of the metal can significantly change the shape of the market, making those historical averages no longer relevant.

"Intrinsic value" probably wasn't the best way of phrasing it. What I meant was that, as a commodity with a looong (though variable) history of demand, precious metals aren't going to loose all their value. Unlike, say, risky stock, which can end up being worthless.

'Course, I'm speaking typing as someone with close to zero knowledge of this stuff :hehe:.

Yup stocks can really plummet and there are only a few companies that i've seen that can survive crisis moments. Precious metals will be valued due to their rarity and the ability of people to have faith in them as a form of currency. Only thing i've found weird about currency is people using Salt at one time.

Right now from what i'm reading and what i'm thinking IRA's might be my best bet due to them having special tax exemptions/rules. However with that said I need to do some more research on Palladium and Platinum to confirm what i've heard through the different scientific communities. If I can confirm that then I might buy some actual bullion or coins of Platinum or some bullion of Palladium depending upon things.