The Fight at the Bottom: S&P 800

There is a real tug of war going on right now: the battle for the market bottom.  Much prevailing wisdom saying there is a lot of support for the S&P 500 at around the 800 mark.

The market is cris-crossing back and forth over it right now.  If we can stay above that at the close, it may be a bear market rally of 10-15%.  If it closes or dives below, we may retest the market lows of November before the turn.

When will all this uncertainty end?  Answer: no time soon.

In the 1970s when we went off the gold standard and inflation ate away at purchasing power, the typical American household became a 2 wage earner reality to pay the bills.  In the 80s and 90s, our savings rate went to zero as we spent more and more of our available income to keep up our standard of living.  In this century, we have moved to deficit financing to keep the party going.

What is left?  How is the American consumer, 70+% of our economy and 40+% of the world economy going to “get things going again”?

Answer: no time soon.  Prepare for, in the words of our new President, a “lost decade” my friends.

To show you where my head is at, the most recent additions to the clutter on my desk are 2 boxes of shotgun shells and the 10 oz of Platinum that I bought back in Dec (finally delivered … now worth 35% more than I paid for them).

Like Hunter S Thompson once said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Later…

Buying Gold and Silver

I found a great new resource for getting the latest and greatest street prices for gold and silver.  It has been the case that the spot price of precious metals has been collapsing like everything else.  This is in due in part to the massive deleveraging of hedge funds who are selling anything they have of value to meet their margin calls as investors redeem their accounts and want to go to cash.  Since these are paper contracts to buy (or sell) silver and gold, it is not really reflecting the price on the street where you and I have to go to buy a one ounce coin or other inflation hedge such as so many people are doing now.

Hence the price of gold at your local bullion dealer has been significantly above what you see online as the “market price” of gold (or silver or platinum, etc.).  Enter… The Ebay Factor!

I have been buying and selling gold and silver on eBay for nearly 5 years now and consider it to be the “true” market price as it is a) widely available and b) has a broad selection of inventory (something tough to come by at a dealer these days).

There is a site that has set up a seemingly endless combination of search bots that can tell you whatever you want to know about the price of gold and silver on ebay.  Current listings for all kinds of different products (and countries of origin), average sold price, % above spot price things are selling for, etc.  It’s absolutely awesome … especially for a trader like me that wants to buy low and sell high.  I can keep an eye on how things are playing out and jump in and buy when the trend is down and toss items up for quick auctions when the price trend is up.

Check it out.  The site is www.24gold.com and the links for silver and gold are below.  Happy Bidding!

gold on eBay

silver on eBay