Monthly Archives: December 2019

Buying Lasting Presents Which Appreciate in Value

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Buying Gifts that Retain or Increase in Value

If you’ve ever watched the 1964 rendition of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer you’ll know who Yukon Cornelius is. He’s the most famous prospector in the north, searching for silver and gold. That being said, he never finds any.

Don’t be like Yukon, buy your relatives gifts that appreciate in value! Silver coins are a nice gift because they are affordable and have a decent upside potential – and look nice!

Legos hold their value well if you don’t open the box! Video games depreciate fairly quickly, and clothes are basically worthless after they are used. Gift cards are worse than cash in that they usually have an expiration and can get lost or forgotten about. Stocks are not easy to buy for kids these days because you have to open accounts and deal with a lot of overhead in getting started. Bonds are boring.

So next time your considering buying present buy a fancy silver coin! There are a variety of designs to choose from, including Star Wars designs, battleships, pirates, and dinosaurs for the young ones.

Coins can be cool!

Recommended Websites

1.  Modern Coin Mart

https://www.moderncoinmart.com/

I like Modern Coin Mart because they have a wide variety of coins to choose from. These range from historical to modern (like the dinosaur coin), and hail from a variety of countries. You can buy directly from their website (link above) or go through eBay and buy from their eBay store. If you buy from the eBay store they are usually quick to give positive ratings to buyers – if you don’t care about ratings it may make more sense to buy directly from their website.

2. APMEX

https://www.apmex.com/

APMEX is another great website for starting your coin or bullion collecting journey. I like how their bullion includes hand poured bars (like below).

hand poured 2oz silver bar

The January Stock Market Bump

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The IRS lets investors offset capital gains with capital losses. These are separated into two groups, long-term and short-term. At the end of the year (December) investors often dump stocks they lost money on in order to offset their capital gains of the same group. These investors have to wait a month before re-purchasing shares otherwise those losses will be disallowed (called a Wash sale). For this reason later in the money of January a historical trend of putting the money back to use occurs, often buying back the losing stocks because there was some anticipation of future gains.

 

Palladium Overtakes Gold and Platinum

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What is Palladium?

The least well known precious metal is now the most valuable. Everyone knows about gold, silver, and platinum – it’s about time everyone educated themselves on palladium!

  • As of December 13, 2019 Palladium trades at $1,954.06 per ounce, compared to gold at $1,478.12 and platinum at $931.15.
  • 10 years ago Palladium traded at $363 per ounce, gold was $1118 and platinum was $1435.

Palladium is precious metal used primarily in the creation of catalytic converters – which convert harmful gas emissions into CO2 and water vapor. Without catalytic converters the noxious fumes would be released directly by motor vehicles, greatly increasing pollution and cancer rates among urban dwellings.

Where does it come from?

Mined primarily in Russia and South Africa.

A major source of palladium for new items comes from recycling of old catalytic converters (seen below). Palladium is often mined along side nickel and platinum, and unfortunately thieves have resorted to stealing these off of cars for the valuable scrap value of the metal.

Most common use of palladium is in catalytic converters

Jewelry and coinage use palladium

 

Why is it getting expensive?

Supply and demand is pushing prices up. Palladium mines are located in Russia and South Africa, and are not increasing their output of the metal but demand continues to rise. This has made recycling of the converters a necessity, and the increased price should eventually make more mining economically feasible – yet this has not yet happened.

Plop onto this combination speculation and investors buying up the metal and you have a perfect formula for a great price boost.

How do I get in?

The Fastest way is to buy a palladium ETF in your stock portfolio. The major ETF is:

PALL (Aberdeen Standard Physical Palladium Shares ETF). Below is a one year chart:

PALL 1 year performance

Slower way to invest is buy palladium coins or bullion.

Palladium 1 oz bar