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PaperclipPerfector  21hr ago (text post)   4457 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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Seventeen days ago, silver was $90/oz from APMEX. That was list price of a 1oz round, shipped and everything. Spot price was ~$80.

Today, it's $120 shipped, $110 spot, over +30% in a little over two weeks.

Gold is at $5185 for a single round delivered to your door, up from 4650, or 11%. Using spot it's about 12%.

Is this hyperinflation? Is this de-dollarization? A bubble? Does this have anything to do with Venezuela? With Iran? Taiwan? AI?

I'm honestly grasping at straws here, because metals aren't supposed to do this. I've been worried about the specter of hyperinflation since 2008, but it never really materialized, and so my worries were able to be soothed by looking at the lack of hyperinflation in reality.

You can't even tell anything happened in 2008 when you look at the money supply, but you can't help but notice that we've nearly x5 the money supply since December 2019.

Then again, silver is a useful metal. It gets blown up in missiles, it gets used in microchips and electronics, solar and battery technology, and more. Business building these things will simply pay the price for the metal they need and then use it, driving the price up regardless of speculation, but I can't believe that the usefulness of silver has quadrupled in the time since it was going for $25/oz.

How does one go about investing in precious metals?

physical at your local dealer, futures, miner stocks/etfs (indirect, consider it a 2-3x leverage on the metal itself)

You can buy them from online retailers for a premium over the metal cost. The premium will depend on retailer markup and also on what, specifically, the piece you're buying is; generally for coins state issued pieces have a higher premium than privately minted ones(these latter are called 'rounds' to clarify that they are not legal tender but are in other ways identical to coins) and bars/ingots will have higher premiums the smaller the piece is. Retailers will give a discount for paying in crypto and ship to your house in a package from a fake business so no one knows it contains precious metal. To cash in, pawn shops and coin stores will generally buy at a slight discount from the metals cost- this could still be worth it if it goes up enough in the meantime.

Are you trying to swing trade it, or are you trying to hedge against financial collapse?

Considering the latter.

Store your silver in a cool dark place. Those mint tubes are great, and you can place silica gels in there with them.

Then you need to have the physical metal in your personal possession. There are brick-and-mortar gold and silver shops in most cities. I assume you can just walk in and buy some. Expect a moderate markup though.

If one really wants to invest in precious metals and doesn’t feel comfortable maintaining futures positions: GLD for gold, SLV for silver, and GLTR for a basket of gold, silver, palladium, and platinum are three popular choices.

Note that these are all relatively expensive, with expense ratios of 0.4%, 0.5%, and 0.6%, respectively, compared to well-diversified stock and bond ETFs/MFs. I personally have never bothered with precious metals (or commodities in general) and would not recommend dedicating a large portion of one’s portfolio toward them.

Buy from eBay and put it under your mattress.

Buy from Costco, when they offer it.

PSLV is the only paper silver stock I trust, there's definitely paper silver distorting the market.

Junior miners? I made some money in the last month on CDE and NEM. I lost some money today on HL, AG, USAS, and EXK. Probably should have just stuck with SILJ or just SIL.

Mostly its been buy and hold the physical metal for me, but WA wants 10% sales tax converting my paper money to metal money, so I'm back to the tickers.

Starting Jan. 1, 2026, sales of precious metals and monetized bullion will no longer be excluded from the definition of a wholesale or retail sale and will be taxable.

Wow Washingon is really going to shit recently.

You are not kidding. Democrat trifecta rule is awful.

You can't blame this on the Democrats. New Jersey eliminated its sales tax on coins and bullion by unanimous vote while having an all-Democrat government.

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