I'm a stacker. I'm constantly looking at silver and gold prices, the spread, inventories, premiums, derivatives in SLV, etc, etc.
The obvious trend since SVB went down was a move to towards safer assets, let it be a "too big to fail bank (lol)", government securities (lol), and precious metals. Premiums on 1 oz silver rounds (generic) are nearly $5 anywhere you look. My local coin shop (LCS) was charging $4.75 per ounce over spot on generics, which is actually lower than the vast majority on JM bullion and SD bullion.
With silver spot being 24.25 as we speak, a $5+ premium is nearly a 20% premium on the price. Higher premiums almost always mean high demand and low supply. Inventory on the comex is dropping at a pretty staggering rate (277 million oz left) and the entire comex could be drained with a mere $6.6 billion dollars.
My LCS said it's been insane since the banks began to fail. Way more buyers than sellers.
The price of silver specifically has been artificially suppressed by the big banks through derivatives and artificial contracts traded amongst the big banks. As inventory continues to drain, the dollar falls, BRICS grows it's membership, and uncertainty remains, precious metals SHOULD skyrocket.
Ultimately, I don't invest in PMs are a get rich quick scheme, but they really are a great store of value. Not investment advice, but holding silver and gold, while you can still get it, could be an answer to rapidly rising inflation.
This isn't entirely accurate. In the 19th century you could buy a brand new custom house for about $1000 (or less, but its in the ballpark). This was the ballpark cost of a brand new custom house for the entire century (all the way up until 1913ish). That works out to about 40 ounces of gold (by the measure of .0437 oz of gold per U.S. dollar per the constitution).
Gold price today is about $2000. So $2000 times 40 is about $80,000.
Good luck getting a brand new custom home for $80,000.
Looking at silver, in the 19th century it would have taken about 770 ounces to buy a house (which was already substantially undervalued). Today those 770 ounces are worth about $20,000. A few weeks ago it would have been closer to $15,000.
Metal is NOT storing it's value in a straight line. On the contrary, it has been manipulated to all hell. Of course, so has the housing market in the other direction (and other major purchases, like cars, health care, education, etc.), so gold may actually be about right if not for purposeful increase in the cost of life's "major purchases." Silver on the other hand was already undervalued in the 19th century (purposefully, by the bankers who contributed to the constitution which set the value), and is undervalued even more now.
Interesting to use a decreasing in value currency to compare. ...
In my region we have started doing business in silver. Farmers, bakers, that sort of thing, accepting silver. And I do too, for the work I do.
Granted, it is not yet perfect, due to the CB manipulation of money, but we are working on comprehending value for goods and services over historic time, while we move slowly towards loosening ourselves from the system.
And, I hear, quite often, people saying: it feels good to pay with value, instead of monopoly money.
It is an apples to apples comparison. It is the purchasing power of what you can buy in gold or silver now, v. the purchasing power of what you could buy in gold or silver then. The dollar association is a bookkeeping term and a number that people understand intuitively. It has nothing to do with what I was showing, which is how much purchasing power gold and silver have retained in the market over time.
That is awesome.