Is it time to switch to paper Silver?

[harrygill111]

Following the bullish moves last week, and positive breakout of silvers symmetrical triangle I cant help but feel its time to switch to paper Silver. After all, most trading and analysis seem to be based on paper, and anyone making large investments that'l help move the market will have no choice other than paper unless they have a gigantic safe and a couple of dogs/ security guards.

What do you guys think? 

Any tips to help get me started? 

Should I buy and hold for the long term, are there any ways to purchase options for Silver? 

Do you have any tips for more effective investing from the UK? (for fee's etc)

 

 

 

 

 

[Frenchie]

The breakout in monthly is not done yet. And between today and wednesday close, there is the FED decision. Otherwise, I I buy physical, because I don't trust the silver anf gold market derivatives . Except mining stocks, I don't play with the paper

[vand]

IMO it should be considered, but only after you have acquired a suitable base of physical. I think a sensible strategy is to hold physical, paper and have some exposure to mining equities also.

This is what I have personally done: 

 

[harrygill111]

@vand cheers 

I have a good physical stack now. Big enough to need storing at the bank rather than at home. I hate paying the bank to store my PMs despite the protection they give me. Ironically in a doomsday/bank run scenario that physical metal will probably be just as inaccessible as hated ETFs. Also, I thought why not ETFs rather than sinking money on ever larger boxes at the bank. 

ETFs don't give me storage headaches and seem much easier than trying to off-load bucket loads of physical metals at decent prices quickly. In my mind, just the ability to offload when I perceive the top (if the top gets anywhere like $50 again) is enough to offset tax's. Then added benefits from not having to haul heavy metals around and worry about my bank.

On the negative side I'd be loosing out on the strong returns for popular coins like the 10oz QB Lion which was generating 100%+ ROI in a relatively short span of time - the CGT exemptions really add up in that instance.

 

Has anyone tried investing physical returns into ETFs  - do you get swallowed up by fee's? 

Not sure mining stocks are for me just yet, feels like this will need further analysis to manage the added risks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[STONE]

The only reason I havent invested in miners or paper is the brokerage fees and the inevitable capitals gains taxes. With physical, its your own little world...

[JB3]

I've done the opposite - 'cashing in' my offshore allocated stack, held with a third party (a name you will all know), and had a few thousand pounds worth of silver Britannias delivered. For silver, I'd always had more in allocated than physical because of the losses incurred in delivery and / or VAT.

I did it because I worried that - in a situation where silver became expensive / scarce - I could be able to sell my silver to that single third party but find it hard to buy here if needed. So I'd be dependent on their pricing, on their charges, etc., with no option to sell elsewhere unless I paid extortionate delivery costs or flew myself to Switzerland.

 

Interestingly, when I tried to extract the cash from that third party, they refused to release one of my holdings. It seems they wanted to do an 'account review' and this delayed my money by a week - it made me realise that even offshore, allocated accounts are still subject to counter-party risk.

 

[Bimetallic]

On 31/07/2019 at 11:37, JB3 said:

I've done the opposite - 'cashing in' my offshore allocated stack, held with a third party (a name you will all know), and had a few thousand pounds worth of silver Britannias delivered. For silver, I'd always had more in allocated than physical because of the losses incurred in delivery and / or VAT.

I did it because I worried that - in a situation where silver became expensive / scarce - I could be able to sell my silver to that single third party but find it hard to buy here if needed. So I'd be dependent on their pricing, on their charges, etc., with no option to sell elsewhere unless I paid extortionate delivery costs or flew myself to Switzerland.

 

Interestingly, when I tried to extract the cash from that third party, they refused to release one of my holdings. It seems they wanted to do an 'account review' and this delayed my money by a week - it made me realise that even offshore, allocated accounts are still subject to counter-party risk.

 

I've been curious about the logistics of shipping significant amounts of precious metals. How much did the shipping cost in your case? Did it need to be a specialized shipper or a regular carrier?

[Bimetallic]

Harry, I think paper is better than physical-in-your-house holdings. And I think allocated physical in a highly liquid marketplace is ideal – it's safest, and far more liquid than stacks of bullion in one's possession.

With physical in one's possession, it's a huge hassle to sell. You have to go to dealers usually, there aren't many of them, and the price is usually subpar. Selling to individuals adds risk and introduces substantial shipping costs. And again, the price may not be satisfactory.

I like BullionVault best because they're audited, extremely liquid, and have confusingly low fees. It's 0.12% a year for gold, and 0.48% for silver IIRC. They've got a vault in London, and in a few other cities. My link.

There's another allocated outfit whose name I can't recall, but I think Peter Schiff owns part of it. They have low fees on par with BullionVault, maybe just slightly higher. BullionVault has silver – I don't know if Schiff's outfit does.

If you're going to do paper or allocated in a marketplace, I'd actually recommend gold over silver. I see silver as something to hold in moderate amounts for the fun of it and perhaps a bit of investment hedging (and maybe collapse scenarios), but gold is much more efficient for investing (note how much lower the storage fees are above).

[Bimetallic]

As far as securing physical silver at home, I recommend this how-to video by famed YouTube stacker CyberCurtainTwitcher.

[JB3]

On 02/08/2019 at 22:00, Bimetallic said:

I've been curious about the logistics of shipping significant amounts of precious metals. How much did the shipping cost in your case? Did it need to be a specialized shipper or a regular carrier?

 

I cashed out of a position by selling the silver back to the platform. I then used the cash to buy an equivalent value of silver from STG.

 

Shipping was UPS, cost was about £50 I think. Determined by the weight.

 

Pound for pound, silver's heavy

[silenceissilver]

On 29/07/2019 at 08:17, harrygill111 said:

Following the bullish moves last week, and positive breakout of silvers symmetrical triangle I cant help but feel its time to switch to paper Silver. After all, most trading and analysis seem to be based on paper, and anyone making large investments that'l help move the market will have no choice other than paper unless they have a gigantic safe and a couple of dogs/ security guards.

With silver, I have an issue with space in my safe, too. My solution is to focus on buying gold. Unfortunately, I will never run out of space for that.

[JB3]

With the GSR where it is, I'm only buying silver for now.