Silver Power!

Now THAT is a scary comment, Silverhawk. Many a time throughout financial history, a market top has been associated with something that everyone and their dog is talking about. Cabbies and shoe-shine guys were talking stock tips all the time in Sept. 1929. Then came October... CRASH!

Let us hope that the same thing does not occur in the PM markets.

It will, of course. But silver seems to have some good room to run for a while yet. If the US government was supporting the dollar, I would be considerably less interested in PMs... but they aren't. In fact, they are making quite a study of driving the dollar into the dirt. All that does for PM holders is make us richer.

Do not let your local situation dominate your thinking about the silver market. My local coin shop sells ASEs for spot +$5 because he can sell ALL of them that he can get at that price. In fact, it would not surprise me at all if he raised that until his supply and demand were in balance. Not sure what it would take to do that but maybe spot plus $7-8? In his shoes, that is exactly what I would do. It's just good business.

The fact that the price of silver is still rising should tell us that the demand is greater than the supply, although there may be local areas in which this is not the case.

Hello, Jack. Now that is a tough question. I guess that it will depend on the situation at the time. While I do not anticipate a dollar collapse, things HAVE snuck up on me before.

If local retailers were still taking US dollars, then I would probably sell some silver on a weekly basis and dollar cost average out of silver and into dollars to spend on food and other necessities.

If dollars were not accepted by local merchants, then buying necessities directly with silver would be the way to go. In either case, having some silver or gold could be the best way to get through such a crisis.

The 401k thing is even more difficult. Everyone will have to decide that issue for themselves. Most 401k plans have a lot of restrictions on them as to what you can buy. I don't know if a person could actually buy physical gold or silver for their retirement plan or not. I suspect not but it might be up to the specifics of the plan.

One "gotcha" in paper versions of PMs is that some of the PM funds and ETFs do not have much, if any, actual PMs in their portfolio, so cannot deliver them to the "owners" on demand. They are basically funds that buy and sell PM futures and pay off any profitable sellers with cash. From what I have read SLV is a paper-based ETF while SIVR is a PM based ETF. I do not know this for a fact but it is what I have read.

If the dollar were to crash, it would take most of the paper PM funds and ETFs with it because they really are paper based and not metal based. That said, they may be a way to invest in PMs via your retirement plan. If the dollar does not collapse, PM funds and ETFs are about the only way that a person can invest in PMs via their retirement fund.

It would be good to have some PMs in a retirement plan, even if it was a paper-based PM fund or ETF and not a physical PM fund. Still, I would limit the amount to no more than about 10% or so. No matter how attractive most of us here find PMs, there is no guarantee of higher future prices. That's a good bet but it is also not a sure thing, so you should protect yourself and your future via diversification amongst a number of different asset classes.

Of course they should, Fred. Particularly if the prefix "in-" is used before the term "competence" OR if there is real irony involved. I don't think that too many people here have a deep and abiding respect for the government's ability to do things well, so no one should be fooled by my comment.

The government's motto does, indeed, seem to be:

If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!