Hi

How are gold and silver doing these days? I have been out of touch with the market. My guess is probably silver coins are increasing in value every day.

-- Duane (Duane24062@aol.com), February 04, 1999

Answers

Here's a quick update page:

www.ajpm.com

-- likes (to@monitor.prices), February 04, 1999.

Gold has been staying in the 282-292 range. Silver in the 4.90-5.50 range. The current price does not matter. What does matter is what will happen in the last quarter of 1999 when coins become unavailable from the usual sources.

Already, the price of "junk silver" US coins has gone up about $1000 per $1000 face value since a few days before X-mas. There are signs that the US mint has reached or is about to reach its capacity on production of gold and silver coins.

I believe that those with money to invest will regret not buying coins right now. If the want junk silver, the right time to buy was in 1998.

-- David Holladay (davidh@brailleplanet.org), February 04, 1999.

Today (Feb 4) the price of silver bullion is up 4.35% from yesterday - on top of substantial gains for the last several days as well - about 10% from a week ago.

Any thoughts? Another thread 'where's the money' suggests that there is already a cash shortage in some areas. For people who can't get cash, precious metals are a logical alternative. Can this explain what is happening to the silver market?

-- N (no@thanks.com), February 04, 1999.

The spot price of silver Thursday morning had risen to $5.75 an ounce, up from $5.56 Wednesday afternoon. One month ago, the spot price was $4.92.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), February 04, 1999.

Today Gary North sent out an email message stating that the premium on silver coins is 50% (over bullion price), and he says there are almost no coins to buy. He says coin companies are rationing them to their best customers, one or two bags per client. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), February 04, 1999.

I've been "dollar cost averaging" combined with "asset allocation" (sort of) in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium since just October, 1998. The value of my holdings is up +1.6% vs. what I put in. So, the composite price is about the same. But, as each metal goes up and down, relative to the others, I buy more of whatever has the least relative value at the time to keep the value as constant as possible. I.e., if you started with $50 in each, and next month the values were $40 (G), $45(S), $50(Pl), $60(Pd), of the next $200 I put in, I would put in, say $60 in gold, $50 each silver and Plat, and $40 in Pallad. I do it more exact than that, but I don't want to get into details here. If you open an account (see below), and transfer $5 worth of whatever to mine, memo in the transaction your e-mail address and I'll send you how to do detailed calcs. Not that hard.

I deal through http://www.e-gold.com
If you open an account, ref my account 101034

You can transfer metal credits to other account holders and have checks made from your account to whoever.

-- w (w@www.com), February 04, 1999.

Three years ago I bought Morgan Silver dollars for $6.40 each. Now they cost $9.95 each!!!!!

-- Freddie the Freeloader (anonymous@silver.com), February 04, 1999.