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Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

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Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#421

Post by cf141q5325 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #412
cf141q5325 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think that is the case and fractional reserve seems to be the name of the game for some of the ETFs. Would love some numbers regarding the long/shorts if you have them.

I dunno how it works on the US, as a don't invest there. But when I buy some commodity, I get a certificate from the holder saying that it is on their physical possession. That certificate ensures the commodity is mine even if the holder gets bankrupt or some other disaster. Not having it there would be fraud, and my government does go around checking it. I have a quite strong suspicion that this is universal. But we…

Thats not necessarily the case. Somebody described the situation for GLD a bit down.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#422

Post by xjlin0 »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #213
jansan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before 2008 quite a few people around me were purchasing physical gold. I even know of one guy who bought 20000€ worth of gold. AFAIK none of them had any idea afterwards what to with that stuff. I assume it is rotting (or keeps on shining) in their basements and will only be touched when they die or move out.

One of the nice things about gold (one reason it is so valuable) is that it doesn't "rot" or degrade, like, at all. Naturally, it does not tarnish. So unless you have a lot of aqua regia lying about in your house, it will remain exactly as is.

1. Pure gold will react with mercury and halogens. Yes, pure gold does "rot", just at lower rate, but still happens. 2. Most of the physical gold products, even at 99.99% pure, has 0.001% other elements which do rot too.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#423

Post by dredmorbius »

landemva wrote: post #405
ericmay wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can sell the stock and convert it into dollars and then use those. That's something I can do easily today if I wanted regardless of the country I'm in so long as I have the Internet and an ATM. Gold you can't travel with (weight and loss due to theft and also probably actually illegal) and is also not accessible, and Bitcoin you can't buy a coffee with. Other available crypto currencies just do worse jobs th…

> Gold you can't travel with (weight and loss due to theft and also probably actually illegal) Which country? Last week I travelled on planes in USA and may have carried 35 pounds of silver coin, about a pound of gold coin, and >$10k cash. No problems other than being careful putting bag in overhead bin. Travelling in/out of countries like Turkey with metal in carry-on has always been easy. One time the screener was…

There are numerous countries with controls over money entering or, more often, leaving the territory. This can apply to cash, gold, or other valuables. The issue generally falls under the general realm of customs regulations though also capital controls. Domestic travel generally as fewer, and often (but not always) no limits. Risks of seizure, forfeiture, and outright theft should also be considered. It's generally recommended to not check valuables.

Shipping valuables as insured cargo is another option.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#424

Post by mistrial9 »

Symmetry wrote: post #403
mistrial9 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inflation rate for housing or education is at 100%. not per year, but .. there are residential housing listings here in California that have doubled in not very long.. I think the point is, that price increases are not uniform.. and it is related to structural forces of money, as well as markets

It's not uniform. The inflation of housing prices in SF over the last decade has averaged somewhere around 6% leading to a ~100% increase, way higher than the roughly 2% average inflation. But comparing a ~100% increase over a decade to a ~100% increase over a year is very misleading

except that there are houses in other places besides San Francisco.. and that those prices have volatility not seen in San Francisco.. is there is a motivated-reason behind defending the house prices here? projecting stability ?

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#425

Post by olalonde »

RandomLensman wrote: post #371
olalonde wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not sure anything but productive assets could really be that. reply I just mentioned one: gold. It's a bit early to tell for Bitcoin, of course it's probably not going to be doing 225x every decade, but I could see it holding its value better than the US dollar does.

Not sure about gold in the really long-term. There is some data but those comparisons are quite difficult and often flawed. For example, the amount of work you can buy per unit weight of gold might very well be down noticeably from the middle ages. Bitcoin we can come back to in another 150 years or so.

> For example, the amount of work you can buy per unit weight of gold might very well be down noticeably from the middle ages.

Interesting, I didn't know that. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine what other asset would have successfully preserved its value all the way back to the Middle Ages. Certainly not company shares. Real estate maybe? Although that would require maintaining ownership through numerous wars, revolutions and tax regimes.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#426

Post by monadology »

spiritplumber wrote: post #221
pjc50 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Q suitcase with the 50 gold sovereigns from From Russia With Love , was it? Ironically the plot of Goldfinger relies on something which no longer exists: capital controls. The evil Auric Goldfinger was trying to circumvent British control of the export of money by hiding gold in car panels.

There was a more recent Bond movie whose evil plot was about water rights... which had happened, legally, while the movie came out, I think.

The next Bond villain's evil plan will involve either local zoning law or capital repatriation taxes.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#427

Post by gopherthon »

altacc wrote: post #243
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see it happening right now in Argentina: the local currency is worthless, and people are flocking to ... US Dollars. Not gold, not bitcoins, but good old benjamins. So gold isn't even a good inflation hedge: if you walked the streets of a failing economy (pick one: Argentina, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, there's plenty more) and tried to exchange gold for goods, you're not gonna get far (and will probably get mugged…

I notice this when travelling the world and it's one of the main reasons I think the many of the arguments for cryptocurrency are flawed. I've used decades old dollar bills in SE Asia that have been pretty much detached from the US economy for decades and have held value better than bitcoin ever has. The value of the dollar is linked not just to the US economy but also a global black economy and that has some unoffic…

Bitcoin has greatly increased in price while the USD has dumped in value exclusively for decades. The dollar has lost 95%+ of it's original purchasing power when they took it off the gold standard. The dollar doesn't hold value at all, it's losing value due to inflation every single day. Just less rapidly than some other currencies that are manipulated to an even higher degree. Do you pay attention to food, housing, or insurance prices? They have increased _significantly_ in just the past 3 years.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#428

Post by Ancapistani »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #193
doctoboggan wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When smaller countries collapse (as measured by percentage of global GDP) then the IMF, neighboring allies, etc can step in and keep things stable. If the US economy collapses, that's 25% of global GDP, not to mention the ripple effects on other economies and possible power struggles as countries try to adjust to a post US world. If you think the US is at risk of collapsing however I would suggest you buy a gun befor…

> If you think the US is at risk of collapsing however I would suggest you buy a gun before gold You need friends and allies before you need guns.

As someone pretty well marinating in "right wing" - based on where I live and the social circles I tend to run in - you're mostly right. They aren't mutually exclusive; you can have guns and friends at the same time. You can even have friends with guns.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#429

Post by tim333 »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #393
tim333 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say things like that what they usually mean is the volume of bets on the price of gold in the futures markets is much larger than the trading in either physical gold or ETFs representing physical gold. Which doesn't mean ETFs like GLD are not real. It just means that if I say I'll bet you the price goes up, we settle the bet at $100 for each dollar the price moves, that is independent of us actually ownin…

>Which doesn't mean ETFs like GLD are not real. It just means that if I say I'll bet you the price goes up, we settle the bet at $100 for each dollar the price moves, that is independent of us actually owning any gold. Whats your definition of real if it doesnt involve physical gold? An ISIN existing? Sorry if that sounds passive aggressive, i cant figure out how else to word it. There seems to be another definition…

Ok fair enough - I was unclear on the definition of paper gold. But the idea that

>There is a belief that there exists a lot more paper gold than actual gold. So when the run on the reserves starts, the price of gold will explode as billions of dollars worth of gold in the market disappears.

is probably not representative of what would happen. Derivative bets can come and go without really moving the spot price.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#430

Post by tim333 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #207
ggm wrote: post #8

I'd love to see an economists take on the value to a consumer of holding gold in this form, at the price. Investment gold is usually kept in vault, and you trade ownership arms length. Direct gold ownership is rife with risks: fineness, substitutions and overpriced purchase. Yes, you can always sell at a mall gold trader but that's way way off market price. So it's an inflation hedge with a lot of cost and risk and d…

Gold is a scam. It’s an awful inflation hedge. Success in the market as far as selling it to retail is more a demonstration at how successful certain elements in society have been peddling fear.

Dunno. For a scam it's been held by an awful lot of central banks, for many decades, who you might think would figure these things out.

Re inflation it has historically been good at being fairly constant in value in real terms which is not usually what you actually want in an investment - you want them to go up.

Here's the famous graph from Stocks for the Long Run with the 200 year track record https://occaminvesting.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Stoc...

That shows stocks as the best, though for a reasonably enterprising private investor rental property probably wins.

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