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1. Just checked, the met price of a nickel today is 3.8 cents. Not bad. It will go up.

2. “Minimize your exposure to stocks and stock mutual funds!”

   been hearing that for ten years.

   seriously, I’ve heard all the arguments for stocks going down and gold going up and the world coming to an end and the zombies are coming and it all made and still makes sense to me and I’ve believed it. but dude. it’s been ten years now. at what point do you say, “guess I was wrong”?

   1. That which cannot go on forever, will not go on forever. It’s a binary choice: either you honestly believe the trillion-dollar deficits and pump & dump markets can keep doing this forever, or you don’t. Our debt is on a logarithmic curve, accelerating every day.

      Can it go on far longer than any rational estimate predicts? Of course. And frankly, I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t really care what happens. But I’ve got people counting on me to make solid decisions that impact their survival. I will not submit to normalcy bias.

      This silliness, which has been done many times throughout human history, always ends the same way. It may not even ‘end’ in my lifetime, but it *will* end. When it does, I want my kids to know I loved them enough to defer my personal gratification for their benefit.

      “10 years” is nothing. Or it could happen next week.

      1. Challenging position to take.

         1. The market rose when people here said run. In fact, the market rose massively. If you followed the Rawles POV, you would still be sitting on $1200 gold. If you didn’t you would have seen your investment dollars rise substantially, assuming a decent investment strategy.

         2. Yes, the market will go down. Yes, it is a certainty. When will it happen? No one knows. Has it peaked? I think so, but questions remain. Would I move at least a portion of my portfolio out of stocks and MFs? Yes.

         I’ve read this blog for a number of years, and no, the predictions published here have not come true. They will at some point, but they haven’t thus far.

3. You can keep investments in stocks and mutual funds in this economic environment but be ready to withdraw upon seeing the right signals. Of course, you can put a “stop loss” sell price on your stocks, so that they auto sell if the price drops to that point. As long as interest rates remain (artificially) low then in general the stock market will trend upwards as it has for a century, even taking into account dips in value during the Great Depression, as an example. It proved to be temporary. However, you have to have another pool of assets that will take you through a downturn. I’m not sure precious metals are it, though.

4. PMs are more nearly insurance than investment, though they are both. Do you complain when you can’t “use” the insurance you paid for, because the calamity hasn’t happened?

   1. “PMs are more nearly insurance…”

      And you get to keep the ‘premiums’!

5. If you have been buying boxes of nickels as I have – you may want to check dates. New boxes of 2009-p’s are fetching 5-10 times face. Other recent dates are also bringing nice premiums.

   Nickels are not my one “ticket” to the future, just another way to diversify risks.

6. The federal deficit will go parabolic if interest rates rise terribly high, therefore the Fed will bend reality to prevent that until they can’t. Or they miscalculate.

7. I agree , Brian. We are living in an artificial, highly manipulated economy, especially when it comes to precious metals.

8. Not widely known is the fact that nickels were made with a high content of silver during WWII.
   Whether any still exist outside is collectors’ hands is another story.

9. Regarding the “submerging global economy,” has anyone stopped to wonder if Trump has been using economic policies and tweets to attack the economies of certain bad actors, specifically Iran, Turkey and Russia? After all, when the wall fell and Russia collapsed under Reagan, it was largely due to economic pressures and words, which is what Trump is wielding this time around.

   Sanctions: the new weapon of mass destruction.

   1. Reagan took down Russia over many years of over spending on the military (“star wars”), nuclear weapons, massive naval fleets and NASA projects. Their country was bankrupt and the people revolted beginning first in East Berlin.

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