Gold & Silver Education Center

In early February 2021, silver made a lot of news headlines. The so called "Reddit Crowd" had managed to run up the price of GameStop stock in a coordinated effort to force a short squeeze. This prompted all kinds of media attention and debate.  Soon thereafter, rumors began to circulate that the Reddit investors might next target the silver market in an effort to force silver prices higher. It was never determined how broad and coordinated this effort was, however new increased silver demand did push the silver price up to around $30 and no doubt it is likely some new Reddit silver investors did impact that move higher. On January 29th, a sub group of Reddit investors focused solely on silver ( r/Wallstreetsilver ) was created. Since this blog was also created due to a surge in silver interest, it is only natural to keep an eye on this group of silver investors to see what impact they may have on the market. As of the date of this article, the group has expanded to over 34,0...

If you are new to the world of gold and silver coins, you may wonder if the US Mint is a good place to buy some coins. The US Mint does offer a selection of both gold and silver coins annually and they come with the advantage of being backed for authenticity, weight, and purity by the US government. Also, they provide updated sales figures for gold and silver coins that can be useful information for potential buyers  ( find bullion coin sales totals here ). One thing that can be confusing is that the US Mint offers a variety of different versions of their standard gold and silver coins. The basic bullion coins offered every year are the gold and silver eagles and the gold buffalo coins. You can see examples of the various bullion coins offered here . Unfortunately, you cannot directly buy these bullion coins from the US Mint. The bullion coins (the least expensive versions of the coins) are only sold by the US Mint to a group of authorized purchasers . These purchasers are large ...

A question that someone learning about the gold and silver markets for the first time might ask is  -- Is it a good idea buy the stocks of companies that mine for gold and silver?  On the surface, it might seem like a fairly simple question. In reality, the answer can be a bit complicated. Investing in mining company stocks is definitely a more complex decision than simply making an investment in gold or silver itself. In this article, we will delve into some of the pros and cons so that potential investors can decide for themselves if it makes sense for them to invest in mining stocks. Investing in gold or silver is a fairly simple decision for most people. While there are some different ways to to invest, most people probably just think of investing in gold or silver as buying some of the physical metal one way or another. Once its purchased, it just goes up and down based on the market prices for gold and silver. So for the most part, you only need to try to understand the ...

If you are just starting to introduce yourself to the gold and silver markets, you may wonder if a gold or silver ETF might be a good place to invest. In earlier articles, we looked at other ways people people invest in gold and silver. The article Understandng the US Mint focused on some basic information about the physical bullion coins produced at the US Mint.  Understanding Mining Stocks looked at some important factors to consider in evaluating a potential investment in mining company stocks. In this article, we will talk about another way some people invest in gold and silver, the ETF's (Exchange-Traded Funds). We'll use a Q&A style format to offer same basic information about these funds and how they are perceived by experienced gold and silver investors. Q: What is a commodity Exchange-Traded Fund? A: Here is a definition from Investopedia : " A commodity ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) invested in physical commodities, such as agricultural goods, natura...

If you are new to gold and silver coins, you may wonder about the coins sold on TV on shopping channels like HSN. Below is a typical presentation for a US silver eagle coin that aired earlier this year. The product being offered is a one ounce standard bullion version of a silver eagle produced by the US Mint. The coin is offered for a total of about $105 with shipping included. You may ask - Is this a coin I should buy? On this blog, it is not our purpose to make specific investment recommendations or offer investment advice. Instead, the goal here is to provide quality information and resources so that someone new to gold and silver can better make those decisions for themselves. With that in mind, we will examine this coin as offered by HSN and provide some information and resources you can use to assess if this kind of coin would be of interest to you. This silver eagle is the standard bullion version of the coin produced by the US Mint as noted above. The US Mint does not sell thi...

The 200 day moving average is one signal that the computer algos watch. Recently, silver had fallen below its 200 day moving average as shown on the chart below from stockcharts.com . But Thursday (4-1-2021) it closed well back up above the 200 day average. The chart below (based on the April silver futures contract) shows the 200 day average at $24.77 and a candle yesterday that moved from below that price point to close at $24.95. chart from stockcharts.com click on chart to enlarge

The recent news about a potential attempt to squeeze the price of silver higher has attracted the interest of millions of people who may be new to the precious metals markets and in particular the silver market. The purpose of this blog will be to provide fundamental educational resources to learn about these markets and their longer term prospects. Having followed these markets now nearly 20 years, I have learned that having a solid basic educational foundation is important to anyone who may be thinking about investing in this market sector. It is not the purpose of this blog to offer investment advice in any way.  Basically, as we follow these markets, we will look for the highest quality information sources to provide readers here with the tools to better evaluate the precious metals market sector and therefore be in a better position to make personal decisions in the months and years ahead as they consider where to allocate their investment capital.  Since silver has been ...

I have been watching the March Silver Futures trading for the last couple of weeks. It's been an interesting battle going on there. Several times over the last two weeks, the price has dropped sharply below $27 on a related surge in the volume of contracts being traded. This is something long time silver watchers are not surprised to see. This time however, each time the price fell below $27, a surge of buying volume would push the price back up over $27. That is a bit unusual. This battle raged on until today we got a seemingly clear break above $28. The chart below shows this battle visually with the straight line across at around $27 (click on chart to enlarge it).                                                                                    Chart courtesy of StockCharts.c...

Silver is already a key component in cars today because cars use computers and computers use silver. Silver also shows up in other places such as in the glass windshield to help with defogging . Looking ahead though, as electric vehicles grow in number, silver looks to be potentially important there too. One of the negatives with electric vehicles is the driving range in miles for the car before the batteries have to be recharged and also the entire lifetime of the batteries which are expensive to replace. Silver may help with those problems as the video below explains. It seems using silver in new test batteries at Samsung achieved some important potential breakthroughs in both areas. The use of silver to potentially improve existing batteries is explained in the video. Silver shows up at around the 3:40 mark A battery with a 500 mile range (or more) and that can be recharged over a lifetime of 500,000 vehicle miles would be a major improvement over the technology in electric vehicles...

  Weekly market update from One Gold    Gold Prices Continue Down  03/12/2021 Gold hit its high for the week on Thursday but has suffered more losses Friday in the wake of the U.S. jobless report. Economic data was better than expected, pushing yields for Treasury bonds higher. Gold was trading at $1,711.52 by 9 a.m. EST.  Monday saw investors leaving tech stocks and other high flyers in droves. The Nasdaq fell, but the Dow held steady and even gained.  Tuesday saw those same stocks push back higher. Chinese markets tanked. The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines for COVID-19 were tested against new variants and were found to be effective.  Texas continued to suffer disasters Wednesday, going from its arctic vortex to wildfires. The embattled state is at risk of worse fires in the future, which could impact its population and economy significantly, especially in the wake of what has already been a tough year. Joe Biden’s stimulus bill made it through all the ...