Maxx546

Thats that cleared up then!

The above really is excellent advice from @HonestMoneyGoldSilver 💯
I'd add that if you want to learn more about sovereigns, what makes some rarer than others, or more collectable, the various varieties in design, from different mints (to me at first, they 'all looked much the same'!), then I highly recommend the following book:
The Gold Sovereign Series - Michael A Marsh. The latest version is 'Hardcover - 28 April 2021'. You can search the ISBN number online to find it. ISBN 1908828552
 
In terms of buying sovereigns and half sovereigns to stack for bullion: half sovereigns will be a little more expensive than a full sovereign - this is because the smaller amount of a precious metal coin or bar that you buy, the more there is a premium to pay. 
I'm fairly new to this forum; I've heard great things about premium membership (currently only £1 for the first month) and this unlocking the ability to view many more adverts on the forum of folks selling their coins/bars. I am yet to do this, and I shall get around to it. I take a while to find my feet.
 
I've been stacking sovereigns and half sovereigns for bullion (and if an unusual or rare one comes up at the right price, collecting those too).
So far, I've used dealers such as Chards, Hatton Garden Metals, Atkinsons, to obtain what they tend to call 'best value'. These should arrive as coins in a decent condition, and are basically second hand coins. Often, they are circulated older coins, but some modern ones turn up. I've had anything from 'Jubilee head Victoria' right the way through to Charles, in 'best value'. I've even had a couple of rare coins in 'best value' too (e.g. an 1889 Sydney Mint Victoria, rated as R3 rarity in the Marsh book... number 140).
There are also 'best value' Britannias in their various weights (1/10, 1/4, 1/2, 1 Troy Oz). If you want Britannias with the newer security features, these have been minted since 2021. Note that Brits became 24 karat from 2013 (before 2013, they were 22 karat, same as all old and modern sovereigns).
 
Hopefully this info is also helpful 🙂
Also... welcome to the forum!
 

I can give you some basics but there are much better coin experts on TSF than me:
1) A sovereign is 7.998 grams of 91.7% gold (22 Karat), or an AGW (Actual Gold Weight) equivalent of 7.322g fine gold (999/9999 gold or 24 Karat). A sovereign = £1
2) A double sovereign is like the name suggests - double the gold weight of a regular sovereign and = £2
3) A modern Britannia coin is 99.99% gold (24 Karat). The AGW (Actual Gold Weight) is equivalent to the weight of the coin - e.g. a 1oz Britannia is 1oz of fine gold
4) Those are Troy Ounces (31.1035g) not metric ounces (28.35g)
5) The design can make a difference to the premium although premiums are generally more closely tied to scarcity than the subjective beauty of the design
6) For investment stacking you don't need to consider the design you should concentrate on AGW (Actual Gold Weight) and low premiums
7) In the UK an important component of stacking gold is CGT-exempt coins. CGT = Capital Gains Tax. Any coin produced by the Royal Mint that has a face value (£1, £2, £100, etc) is CGT-exempt. This means you can buy and sell an unlimited amount of these coins without having to declare your profit to HMRC - i.e. these coins are completely tax free, no taxable events take place when buying/selling as a private individual
8 ) Other gold coins like world gold and some coins produced by the Royal Mint may not be CGT-exempt, so taxes might be due on realised profits above the CGT threshold (currently £3000/tax year). There is a whole library on the HMRC website detailing which coins are and are not CGT-exempt. The simple rule is as above - sovereigns are CGT-exempt as is any coin with a face value. Note that gold bars, even Britannia gold bars produced by the Royal Mint, are not CGT-exempt
9) For pure investment purposes you want the lowest premium coins that are still highly liquid, CGT-exempt and recognised globally. By those 4 metrics the single best coin to stack is arguably the sovereign and the half-sovereign (half the AGW of a sovereign). Any other CGT-exempt coin like the Britannia is just as good as a sovereign if you can get a similar size at the same premium, however, the premium for the closest equivalent AGW Britannia (1/4 oz) tends to be slightly higher than the premium on sovereigns, but not always
10) In short for simplicity you want to stack sovereigns and 1/4oz Britannias. If you have a slightly larger budget then buying 1oz Britannias (or any other CGT-exempt coin) is a good option. The premiums on 1oz coins are slightly lower but the trade-off is it's harder to sell a 1oz gold coin than a 1/4oz gold coin or 1/10oz gold coin. The smaller the coin the more liquid (easy to sell) the coin becomes. For this reason the smaller coins (half-sovereigns, 1/10th ounce, 1/20th ounce) are becoming more popular as the price of gold increases
11) There are all sorts of pros and cons with regards collectible gold like "shield" sovereigns, scarce coins, world and historic gold, etc. Before buying these you should do your own research. It's possible that some collectible (numismatic) coins will end up as better investments than bullion (best value) coins but you need to understand the market before paying extra premiums for collectible or world gold coins
12) The same rules about CGT-exemption also apply to silver - i.e. silver coins produced by the Royal Mint with a face value (£2, £5, £10, etc) are CGT-exempt. For this reason most silver stackers in the UK have Britannias and other CGT-exempt coins as the cornerstone of their silver stack. The CGT thing is less of a problem with silver though. Feel free to buy some world silver coins like Perth Mint, Germania, KOMSCO, etc. The coins from those mints tend to be higher quality than modern Royal Mint silver coins and so keep their premiums better than Royal Mint coins - i.e. better for resale if/when the time comes to sell
13) Remember that investment gold is VAT-exempt in the UK whereas silver is not VAT-exempt. By default this makes gold a better investment choice in the UK than silver. Having said that you won't be paying VAT on silver on TSF, so buying silver here on The Silver Forum can be very attractive

China Holds the Future of US Debt in Her Hands:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/04/alasdair-macleod/china-holds-the-future-of-us-debt-in-her-hands/

The price staying in the current range for a few weeks is more bullish long-term for gold than if the price were to skyrocket. Let me think of another analogy:
The price staying in this range is like pre-going out drinks. The price skyrocketing is like paying for all your drinks at the bar
Who can afford to drink more over the long term? The folks drinking before they go out and when they are out, or the folks who only drink when they are out?

We're in a nice consolidation range at the moment
A super basic analysis says the longer we stay in this range, the lower the RSI for gold (It was >70 in the past couple of weeks, now it's dropped to 56.4, the bottom squiggle in the chart below). A rating above 70 means overbought, i.e. possibly in line for a downwards correction, so being at 56 is much better than being at 76

If you check the cheat sheet you'll see the 50% RSI is rising in USD terms along with the 70% RSI. A few days ago the 70% RSI was at $2385 and now it's been pushed to $2432
XAUUSD - Gold Forex Trader's Cheat Sheet - Barchart.com
So the longer we stay in this range the more attractive it becomes to buy gold, which provides the foundation for the next 15% jump in prices. If we go too soon it's like leaving base camp to climb the peak with insufficient oxygen. Staying here and recharging the tank gives us a better chance of reaching the peak. Of course there are hardcore MFs who can do it without oxygen but plenty have tried in the past and their frozen corpses are still there on the side of the mountain 

While there's fair reason to believe USA won't bring rates down soon (because inflation is so high and everyone is buying shares, blindly jumping on the bubble wagon making everything look rosy), the gov's own debt is costing crazy money (1 trillion) - they really need rates to come down. So it's difficult to predict.  Rate drops will cause a boost in lending, then boom the economy, hence further explode inflation. So then they may put rates UP - and then we have the 1970s situation (where gold - and especially silver) absolutely crash medium term (liquidity crisis), but then they will explode to the moon, the sun, then a galaxy far faaaarrrr away.
That situation could happen over months - possibly even years.
But who knows what could happen in the meantime? Oil could easily double with current world nonsense, which would cause a very quick, severe hike to inflation, which would be guaranteed to lead in to recession - probably a depression - with rate drops and gold mooning much sooner.
Or banks collapse and everyone panics....
Or the USA finally tell the truth about job numbers (and stop counting one person with 5 jobs to make ends meet = 5 employed people). That boils my p*ss that one!
and so on...
Whatever happens the only way is up for gold over the long term. The whole world is one giant cluster f... and there's only so long you use Polyfilla to hide a crack in a dam. 
Long story short: I have no clue. But moon is coming either way!

If you made it this far. Congratulations.

Should have gone with...

Ross Norman update (looking at $2250 as the base camp😀)

 
Not all buying is equal and that is becoming apparent to gold. 
Arguably the physical buying interest from central banks as well as Chinese retail purchases underpinning this market could count as some of the highest quality in that neither is likely to return to the market irrespective of the price action.
The same cannot be said of the more recent speculative flows, which by their nature, are arguably agnostic to the asset itself … it's a pure exercise in making money. Long or short … gold or soda ash futures … who cares. Like 12 year olds high on e-numbers, the futures market can be a riot of activity, rife with rumour and everyone keen to jump on the latest fad. 
If you marked the 'new gold paradigm' to 1st March 2024 before the yellow metal went near vertical … and showed little regard for neither financial market indicators nor geopolitics … then arguably the gold floor is comfortably set at around $2060. That said, physical buyers who missed the rally will likely jump in as the market retraces, setting a much higher floor. The charts offer some guidance – with the 100 dma at $2250 and this will likely be the first port of call … will it hold ? … that depends upon the level of long liquidation coming out of China, because that seems to be the driving force just now. 
So China has tightened trading conditions as a safeguard in a gold market thatb it clearly deems to be too hot. 
On April 8th, the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) advised gold margin requirements would be tightened from 10% to 12%, and the daily price limit would be adjusted from 9% to 11%. On April 12th, further adjustments were made. Starting from the close of clearing on April 15th, the the margin requirement for gold contracts was increased from CNY 45,000 per lot to CNY 51,000 per lot. Similar adjustments were made to silver after it hit “limit up” on April 8th.
More importantly, on April 10th, the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE or Shiffy) similarly announced the reduction of trading limits for gold futures, with a maximum number of contracts for intraday gold trading set at 2,800 lots. On April 16th, the SHFE further adjusted the daily price limit for gold and silver futures to 8%, while increasing the hedging trading margin requirement to 9% and the speculative trading margin requirement to 10%.
These changes provide significant speed bumps on the motorway that is gold trading. It is a passion-killer. It follows that Chinese speculators would look elsewhere.
Gold saw the largest price decline yesterday in 14 months followed by a further significant declines today with large volumes being traded in Shiffy. 
 
There is a sense that the speculative froth is leaving the market and as it declines, gold will re-engage with its core physical buyers who have been left behind. If you want to know where that floor is then the charts will give you a view – and if not, Indian bargain-hunting is normally a great bell-wether. In short, this is healthy for gold. 
Rumours that the Chinese government would be building significant stockpiles of nickel sent prices up by a massive 6.5% on Shiffy, just as gold cratered … a coincidence ? I think not. 
Meanwhile domestic Chinese gold ETF buying, normally the preserve of a footnote, has accelerated with 28.5 tonnes of gold buying in the last 4 weeks. So as speculators depart stage left, it appears that 'quality' gold investment is re-entering stage right. So grounds for encouragement.
 

Yep lining up the socks for another rug pull.. getting CBDCs in place to force us into them by destroying the high street banks. I've said this before. 
They'll collapse one high Street bank and then pay you out your FSCS insurance to a CBDC account as you can't trust the high Street banks now....

Taken from the telegraph today.
Millions of jobs will be at risk if a surge in lending by so-called shadow banks ends in disaster, a top Bank of England official has warned. 
Nathanaël Benjamin, executive director for financial stability, strategy and risk at Threadneedle Street, advised that runaway growth in lending by private equity companies is complex, opaque and potentially risky.
The market has surged in size since the financial crisis, with private equity racing to fill the gaps and secure higher returns after traditional banks cut back.
However, private credit is far less regulated than banking, and the authorities have less idea of the possible pitfalls.
Mr Benjamin said: “With many UK companies (large and small) reliant on private markets for financing, a shock to this sector – driven by investor losses and/or a decreased appetite for private assets – could limit their ability to access the financing they need, which could lead to cutbacks in investment and employment.”
He said that globally, private credit is worth $2 trillion (£1.6 trillion), with private equity investing £250bn in the UK. Together with their supply chains, British companies backed by private equity and venture capital employ 3.5 million people.
Private credit refers to loans which are made by funds and individual businesses, rather than by banks or on the publicly traded bond markets.
The jump in interest rates in the past two years has caught the industry by surprise, leaving indebted companies struggling with higher borrowing costs, and private equity companies stuck with few ways to sell off their assets.
Default rates are rising as businesses fail to refinance or repay their debts.
Mr Benjamin said: “Private equity is particularly vulnerable to this given its extensive use of leverage, and the illiquid nature of its investments.
“Some companies sponsored by private equity have turned to refinancing solutions which delay crystallisation of risks.
“That includes ‘amend and extend’ or ‘payment in kind’ agreements. While these agreements can help smooth through the stress, the risk is that the impact of higher rates is simply delayed, and an extension gives false comfort, increasing credit losses in the future.”
The rise of private credit in part reflects a move away from bank lending in the wake of the financial crisis. However, many banks have subsequently been swept up into the industry by funding parts of private equity – raising new risks as the financial system becomes more complicated.
Mr Benjamin said: “There are natural questions about the risks of these financing arrangements, and the growth in kinds and quantity of leverage, or ‘leverage on leverage’, throughout the ecosystem.
“And I cannot resist pointing out the ironic contradiction in banks, on the one hand worried about the threat from non-bank players, but on the other hand keen to help them leverage themselves up.”
But he conceded the system is opaque, which makes it hard for regulators to fully assess the risks or to identify what would happen in a new crunch.
He added: “To be honest, in the same way as there is a lack of transparency in valuations, more generally data about the impact of private equity on the corporate sector is scarce, and it is difficult to assemble the overall picture.”
This was the best comment I saw in the readers comments:
IMF warning that the US borrowing and money printing is out of control, 1 trillion debt every 3 months, Gold surging, some claim the entire banking system in the west is insolvent.
Do the wise thing, consider what assets you own, and what can withstand a massive financial shock ... a reckoning is coming that will make 2008 look like minor affair. Global war is not by accident, its playbook when the system is on the verge of collapse. In other words the elite are just waiting to manufacture the next "crisis" in the bid to gain total control.
They are even telling us where they will target next - such is their arrogance.

As a killer, tyrant and all round cXXXXt once said:
“It is necessary sometimes to take one step backward to take two steps forward.”  (Lenin, of Marxist-Leninist fame)
Gold IMHO is doing what it should be doing. We have a wide range to exploit/consolidate between $2200-2375. The longer we stay in this range without breaking above of below, the more likely we are to get another sustainable move up of similar magnitude to the past few weeks
Check my comments going back 12 months (if you are bored and have infinite time on your hands). The key point for me is $2300. It's nice for us to have the £1900 level psychologically and we're pretty much there (£1898.21). In Yankee Disney tokens we're at $2341 which is great. Everything is going according to plan

Anyway GOLD. Not doing a whole lot on open but we really don't want it to. If gold accelerated past $2471 then it would hit the 80% RSI and start setting off alarm bells that people should be selling. The current price is pretty much at the 70% RSI (Relative Strength Index) of $2380. A rating above 70 means a stock/commodity is overbought and might be in line for a correction. The higher the number goes, the more likely a correction becomes
So we chill at this price level comfortably above £1900/$2300 for a while until we consolidate our gains before the next leg up. There was a discussion about this a few pages back between @SovereignBishop and @SidS that covered most of it. As stackers and long-term holders we definitely want the price to go up but we don't want massive volatility, that doesn't suit us at all, high volatility suits traders and the ultra wealthy. Our ideal scenario is to be the turtle, slow but steadily accumulation in a sustainable fashion. Booms and busts make buying physical gold riskier as failure to time the market (timing the market is theoretically impossible) may lead to losses if you happen to be unlucky when making a large purchase.
We want things to be easy and for our decisions to buy gold, DCA or large purchases, to be straight forward. You buy, hold, number goes up, great, job done. We can see the recent volatility has had a negative effect on sales and premiums, depending on your POV. A slow, steady rise with steady premiums suits the dealers/sellers and the buyers
XAUUSD - Gold Forex Trader's Cheat Sheet - Barchart.com
Gold: Technical Analysis Chart | | XAUUSD | MarketScreener
You can use the cheat sheet linked above or if you prefer visual tools, a chart like the one linked to view the nominal price, RSI, Vol, Fibs, Bonnies, etc

But mainstream media is there to educate and inform us, isnt it ?
It not about selling advertisements, pushing political agendas, reshaping society, set agendas, push world globalist polices, biased and selective reporting,  prioritising SJW and woke news, peddling doom and gloom porn 24-7, sensationalism, pushing conflict driven narratives or looking after cooperate interests surely is it ?

Won’t let me add anything to the poll but that’s a fair shout. 
 
The original plan was enough to cover a years worth of living (so about 12oz). I’m a few grams short of 20oz (well that’s what my Therapist said) but no real pension apart from the work place one. 
Got a nice chunk in a S&S isa and no mortgage so not too bad off. 
 

Most people suffer price indigestion.  If you were buying sovs at 250 quid it’s takes a while to get used to buying them at 330.  Etc etc 
but after a period of time one adjusts and gets back into the swing of it..
 
I have the same attitude to beer prices.  But that only lasts about 4 minutes 

We all might get our money back off them RM Memorial sov sets at some point this year now!?

The chart in USD is just smashing it's way up.  If I were short I'd be bricking it right now.  If it gets up above the all time high, the stops are all going to get taken out and fuel another boost upwards.  After the news yesterday, all the shorts will be with stops just outside the ATH.  Dangerous.....  Crazy action in such a big liquid market during fully open trading hours.

The US thought it could out counterfeit print/spend China, export inflation, counterfeiting however is a arena in which China excels, can out print and buy US treasury's in equal measure, and additionally gold on top, firmly returning the ball into the US court. The grand final will be who actually holds the physical gold, if/when there is a gold-rush to convert 120 times more paper gold into physical gold. Those who built upon paper gold foundations will bid up physical gold to buy or die prices. The trick for those holding physical will be not to sell too much too quickly, even when prices may seem high. Early 1920's seemed like a great time to sell all your gold in Germany ... and then in 1923

I smell a little Iran Israel fisty cuffs in the gold price

Price in USD now back above the fed announcement price.  If that accelerates back to the top in USD then we're through 1900 in a heartbeat.
Fed happened around the 12:00 mark in the middle of the USD graph below.  Gaining pace in USD now hence the GBP push to new highs.  £1874 now

Speaking of @LawrenceChard @ChardsCoinandBullionDealer - congratulations are in order, I believe 
 
 

Yep, this
We're celebrating GBP going down like it's gold that's going up. In reality gold is currently down today

 

 
The above being a good excuse for the BoE to RAISE rates not cut. Being popular is fun 😁
Nope. The market has already shifted to September as the first month with a majority cut view. June currently shows a 16.9% odds of cutting, down from 65%
31st July is about 42.5% odds of cutting
18th September is about 68.5% of cutting
Again another reason for the BoE to hike, on top of the obvious one that inflation is still a nightmare in the UK. Fan mail to @OrangeBastard2024
CME FedWatch Tool - CME Group

1 gram of gold has officially hit £60 spot price