Is aluminum the next "precious?" I'm now collecting and recycling cans. Spot price is currently $1.53/lb. My local yard pays $0.60/lb for aluminum cans. Not too bad!

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/australian-alumina-ban-will-squeeze-rusal-aluminium-2022-03-21/

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Nickel is insane right now. Trying to get high alloy reactors quoted. Mills are quoting “price in effect” which means I have to agree to pay whatever the price is when the metal plate comes out of the mill in 16-17 weeks. No cancellations. I’m basically having to sign a blank check and gamble on the nickel market.

Not upvoting because of the situation, but because of the good info. Thanks.

Nickel continues to go absolutely bonkers at $16.28/lb. The price is up over a dollar today from earlier this morning. You know, it was only a few short years ago that silver was around this price. Is nickel on the verge of becoming a precious metal?

The silver shortage continues. Especially with 90% constitutional silver. The US Mint is now restricted by law from buying silver blanks due to high premiums. Curious to see what happens with the supply next month. My local coin shop is now closed with a voicemail greeting stating they are only open Fridays and Saturdays. I stopped by Saturday to find they were closed even then. May just have no inventory to sell.

You’re confusing per pound with per ounce pricing. Nickel is nowhere near silver.

I know it's not per ounce. It still seems to be the most valuable industrial metal as of late based on demand.

I used to collect coins that I found, bought a few from a hobby shop when I was younger, currently doing some spring cleaning and wondering what is the best way to sell them? I don’t want to go through them all and look at their values or list them on eBay, I’ve done that in the past and it’s very tedious.
Have a small collection of coins with silver in them, I’ll put a picture below, and then some odd older pennies and nickels and probably 200 or so wheat pennies I’ve found over the years.
Facebook doesn’t seem to allow coin sales, I tried to list it as a lot on my wife’s account but it would get taken down even though I see some for sale. I don’t need top dollar, just something fair that would get them out of the house and someone else can enjoy them

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If you message me a list of the dates I can tell you what they are all worth and what we buy them for and sell them for in my shop.

Thanks, I’ll put a list together this weekend

I used to collect and recycle aluminum cans about 35 years ago. I would go around the country roads and others just enjoying the walk but I only got 17 cents a pound. How the times have changed.

Just goes to show almost any raw material will follow inflation.

48 years ago I was picking up money back bottles. At first they were 5 cents, but luckily I had saved a whole bunch and when they went to 10 cents I cashed in. I had $35 worth of bottles when I cashed in. I spent the entire $35 on a rare mercury head dime.

When I was young I loved rare coins and I did well with them when I sold later in life.

Anyway, after cans were the thing, I used to ride a bike picking them up to cover a lot of area. The cheapest price I ever remember selling for was 30 cents a pound.

I no longer pick up any cans, but I save my beer cans, and normally I get around $80 for a pickup load when I cash in. It is like free money.

I find and it's been awhile that you can still get silver coins mostly dimes and I did find a quarter from change given back. Best old wheat penny I got 1916 even before my grandmother was born in 1919. I also did find a Indian head penny in my grandmothers garden which many years ago was the site of a grocery store that burned. Date on the 1898 not bad for a eight year old kid at the time.

Aluminum cans around here are fetching .87 per pound, its never been so high. #1 copper is almost $4 a pound. Great time to be a scrapper!

I was able to get $4 a pound for bare bright copper wire last September. Will check it again this summer.

Interesting that the spike in gold and silver prices wasn't "tamped down" yesterday by the big bank manipulation. This morning, there is a small drop but that shouldn't last long throughout the day I would think.

The upcoming Wall Street Silver 4/20 raid should be intriguing.

It's that time of year again and as the summer lows in the POG (Price of Gold) are approaching, I'm getting ready to back up the truck and buy more of my favourite gold stock, AEM, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (TSX, NYSE).

Third largest gold producer in the World (after Newmont and Barrick), assets in safe jurisdictions, nice quarterly dividend and AISC (All In Sustaining Costs) of $1,000 / ounce of gold.

As always, not investment advice, dyodd (do your own due diligence).

On the equities side and not the physical metal holding side of metals the “charts” look at Miners in a state of flux now and a bottom and length of time lower is yet to be determined.

I sold my GDX which is a miner Exchange traded fund for around $40 last month as it was looking to top out and pull back which it did. For me Miners are ok to start “accumulating” again. Miners should do well at some point in the future, but may take time for “the next” set up. Now that you reminded me I looked it up and last year I sold my Nemont and Barrick gold stock May of last year, so yes “around that time of year” like you said. Yup. I will keep an eye back up the truck later though.

As of now on “equity side” Silver has the best looking set up over miners second and gold Third. Like I did with miners I am looking for a time to go aggressive buying on it with SLV, but in the mean time I purchased SLVO.

SLVO is an ETF that constantly sells covered calls on its silver holdings and pays “income (not dividends) on the premiums collected back to the investors monthly. Covered calls get bought by investors who pay a premium for the right to buy a position at a future price by a certain date, in this case silver. When silver or any other position is currently lower and could highly possibly have a solid upward trend then investors can really do well on options themselves but you don’t need to manage them with Slvo. SLVO collects the Premiums paid and returns them back to the holder and this will increase as the price of silver get higher as investors get on the upward trend.

SLVO has lower entry price and income started to pay higher at .06 last month. This will increase if silver rises. The monthly payout was bonkers in 2013 reached .35 and was priced at $21. SLVO is $4.50 now. If you believe in Silver is going to have a run within the next few years it “could” be a good option to earn good income while you wait. Income payout history below.

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/funds-and-etfs/slvo/dividend-history

Got to run but also will give view on why “equites” are good but also “not good and possibly really bad” way to play metals. So hold off on the comments and pitch folks please until then.

All FYI and do your own due diligence.

I made this meme in half an hour.

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A few thoughts on the POG (Price of Gold):

- Usually at this time of year, the POG is beaten down into the summer lows, as per (below) this 40 and 15 year chart at http://www.321gold.com/charts/seasonal_gold.html
This price action rhymes with 'sell in May and go away' but makes for a nice bullish annual cup and handle formation.

- However this year, the POG has been unusually (and understandably) strong, as displayed in yesterday's exceptionally wide $54.10 trading range, from a low of $1824.20, to a high of $1878.30 and closing out near the high at $1872.20.

- This week's raging inflation numbers and stock market meltdown would normally require a concerted smackdown in the POG. Yesterday's smackdown attempt was unusual in that it totally failed.

- I note with interest that the usual reason given for a POG smackdown coinciding with a general stock market meltdown is "gold was sold to cover stock market margin calls."
Well, they can't say that after yesterdays action! Why?

- Covering margin calls from general stock market losses now seems to be at the expense of formerly frothy other sectors like cryptocurrencies, high tech, unicorn IPO's, SPACs and the like. Over the years a lot of money went into these sectors and now a lot of it is coming out through fear and margin calls. For example. the Ethereum long term chart has finally broken down into bear market territory (Bitcoin already had). As sector leaders, they signal a wider bear market in that sector and plenty of margin call and rotation selling cash is/will be available.

The PPT (Plunge Protection Team) will no doubt attempt to remedy this, or not, if that is the plan (but they can always regroup for Monday though, like in 1987!)

However, this year's and particularly Friday's POG action only underlines gold's strength.

(As always, not investment advice and dyodd)

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Not a precious metal, but scrap alumium cans are going for $0.70 per pound in my area today. I spoke to one of the metal recyclers and they said it was as high as $0.85 per pound few weeks ago. They told me the price is back on the down fall.

Copper dropped .20 in the last week. I know the price of new wire will not change but the scraps I collect aren't what they were a mere week ago. I shoulda cashed in before the Fed's hiked the rate.

I did make a tiny bit of $$ today on AEM...........thanks @manyquarters. We'll see what happens with it tomorrow.

That's the way I see it with base metals. Just on a smaller scale. High interest rates slow down economic growth and thus demand for metals for industrial use. I expect these base metal price drops to be temporary. Yes demand is down but it will never go down to zero. Prices will come back up after the recession is over and production/consumption return to normal.

Outrageous claims from a corrupt government? There are plenty questioning the validity of this claim. Seems to be only small nobody news networks reporting this. I had to dig a bit to find it. Heard about it thru some post a day ago. 12.8 trillion is more than the current world total mined to date I think.

Also note that gold ore is a lot different than actual gold.

With the recent action it looks like some metals “may” have a shot at bottoming. Silver made a move and is best set up to lead the way over gold. Silver needs to hold $18.90-18.75 support and needs to rise up more in the next couple of weeks since it is so far behind.

Gold still needs to break through $1756-1775 soon to get on the path to $2000 plus.

Miners have had a significant pullback and Nemont’s recent earnings debacle didn’t help, but they are setting up nicely for a breakout. Miner etf GDX needs to get to $26.50 before we start to think about a move up.

Gold and silver and miners have their chance. We will see. All FYI

Edit next day - so far playing out well. Silver may extend up further, but will likely pull back just enough to scare folks out of the market. Needs to hold $19.25. Gold and miners will likely have a shallow pullback also. It’s about time things started to pick up.

This is going exactly how I wanted it. Looks like miners are bottoming from their deep April pullback. Need to hold these levels to break out. I added back GOLD from when I sold it in April. Let’s see how things progress.

I can see major excitement here. I am excited at least.

I’m thinking gold drops to $1,700 an ounce by the end of August, but then pushes to around $1,900 by the end of the year.

At the time, copper was around $4.50 per pound. So I'm assuming this yard will pay $0.50 below spot on bare bright copper wire. Copper now is $3.65 and slowly climbing back up. Not sure if I should cash in now or wait, as we're officially in a recession and demand might get worse in the coming months. New home construction is quickly dropping off, which is a large driver in copper demand. Also affects copper use for nearby utilities. Electric cars are unaffordable and demand for those is practically zero at the moment. Other drivers for copper such as RVs, boats, and luxury items are also down as people can't afford them.

Yeah the setup on Silver and gold started out well and unfortunately I saw them break down past $19.30 and $1773 right before my eyes the last couple of days. Also miners. It wasn’t an ideal setup but worth a shot. They will “likely” breakout but just a question of when?

I didn’t post about how things were pivoting because I didn’t think anyone cared. I usually casually follow anyway and now have positions of SLVO GDX and Barrick Gold I bought back into over last month, so that is why I am following even more closely. Since I am starting to see signs of a bottom I will add more and even aggressively if setup is right.

I don’t have any at all but if Silver hits a lower low I may buy some 100 ounce bars. My target is $40 over next couple of years. Whether it comes close is another story.

Silver is such a pain in the butt to store. I did snag some today myself and went for the ten ounce bars, but I am not sure if I ever see silver going on a real run due to the storage issue with it and there is just so much of it…

Silver is too rare and expensive to be a desirable industrial product (industry will always look to substitute it) and too plentiful and cheap to be easy to store. It is in a weird spot.

I see some experts think gold will drop to $1,500-$1,600 range, particularly if the conflict in Ukraine resolves. I’m all for it dropping in the short to medium term so long for buying opportunities.

Here we are again. We had a launch and then fail in July of metals and miners. But after this last and hopefully final pullback we are looking even better now for a confirmation that the 2 year bear market could be coming to an end, a new floor being set, and we can begin the next multi year run.

I have been buying in last couple of months and added a little more today. Want to see how pullbacks go. Sentiment started to turn last week. Let’s see how this plays out.

Yesterday was just the dollar weakening, I do agree PM are positioned well but I’m not sure if we’ve seen the bottom yet.

Yeah TigerLaw the day I stopped trying to figure out “why” prices went up or down with metals stocks economy etc was a day that set me free. The world and markets just do what they do and don’t make sense as much as make sense 50/50 so thinking I know why is usually a waste of time. Especially on the day to day movements. “Thinking” I knew how things work just gave me false confidence that I know how and why things happen. The next step after is arrogance if one is not careful. Not saying you are arrogant but more and more folks are today. Look around. The internets reaffirm their arrogance. Yay!

For example the economy shut down in 2020 and we had folks getting sick and dying, isolating and being fearful, and sure let’s have a horribly divided shit show election also, yet the stock and housing market had a huge bull run?! Folks have reasons why this happened but it could have gone the other way with markets down big and once again folks would come up with reasons why that happened.

I really think the experts and leaders many put faith in don’t know jack crap a lot of the time.

“For me?” I lean Contrarian- if a slightly illogical trend starts I will look into it, learn and try to understand and may even participate. If I do participate and if and when the masses join in then I look to lean away out and on to the next trend. I use my “Dad indicator” a lot. When my Dad warned me over few weeks that he read online it’s not a good time to buy gold and silver may hit $12 that is a sign to start to look to buy. That being said contrarian sucks because I can never get comfortable with any one opinion and view and get mocked, ridiculed or just plain ignored at times because I don’t always go along with the masses. I have been mocked and ridiculed on this thread. I just do what I do and have a good track record so far. You should have seen the mocking I got for being heavy heavy cash and low stocks all year this year.

I mean if you had told me 5 years ago I would be following and investing in metals and miners I would have thought you were crazy, but here I am. Keep an eye out if a run does happen and the masses join also and prices get high. That “may” be a time to lighten. See?

But this thinking leaves me open to anything. If one thinks the world is going to shit, pulls back from society, lives in a secluded area, has food stockpile, farms, and has guns and ammo that is fine. I don’t judge. One day that person may be the smartest person in the state?! You never know. Nothing is 100% guaranteed. I stick with possibilities and probabilities, but those change all the time. I am in a state of constant flux but you know what? That is how the world is anyway.

So let’s have silver not break under $20 and keep gold which didn’t drop as much maintain current levels to get ready to have a break out and hopefully not too far down the road. “If” it happens at all. But Markets don’t care what you or I think. They just do what they do.

Hope all is well!

I have to stay away from precious metals. One guy at work was buying estate jewelry and processing it. He was then confronted at work about it. We do a huge precious metal recycling process at work and it is not worth the trouble of losing my job over a side hustle.

heyo

Still offering gold (1oz American Gold Eagles) for pinballs. What have you got?

Copper is now back up to $3.81 per pound. My theory was wrong! Guessing the value is coming from physical and stock investors. The US dollar index is staying relatively stable at about 104. Copper and nickel just aren't seeing the price drops from demand destruction like gasoline did last fall.

Copper now at $3.99, an increase of $0.18 in 2 days. Holy smokes.

Maybe it'll hit $4.75 again like it did about a year ago. I hope so. I have about 1500lbs. of #1 insulated ready to cash in.

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Nouriel Roubini, in a very informative interview shares his thoughts on where World financial, economic, geopolitical and commodity market variables, including gold are headed:

https://www.kitco.com/news/2023-01-10/Gold-may-be-your-best-protection-mother-of-all-debt-bombs-nine-other-megathreats-are-looming-Nouriel-Roubini.html

Cha ching!

Copper now $4.17! Let's goooo!

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My current stash (see pic)

About 1500lbs.

Historically I'm within 50lbs. on my guesses when I cash it in. I do a couple of these a year. I arrange pricing before I show up with a load. My guy is always happy to see me.

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On the equities side of metals I sold off my miners NEM GOLD and GDX etf and fake holding SLV and GLD last March of 2022. I have been steadily accumulating back especially last few months of last year while keeping an eye for breakouts in the metals and miners sector.

The breakouts of the past faltered but the market has been really consolidating nicely and gave an opportunity to accumulate and once “again” - now gold looks to be ready to give it another try to break out. The longer the period of lower consolation and the lower it goes the better chance it has to form a more solid floor and to make a run. I was waiting for a safer setup to add aggressively but may not get it.

Ideally Spot pulls back about $50 (ii), holds and rises above where we are now that would be further conviction that a breakout is in place. Chart is below. Ideally we want “steps” on pricing of gold. Each pullback is supported and then goes higher. A big rise up is usually not as “real” and can have a huge drop after the rise.

(If you hate charts they are just based on past years of a commodities pricing and overall semtiment on in this case gold . It’s “one way” to look at equalities or commodities and many traders use them. The charts signaled a topping out in March of 202 and helped me “survive 2022”. I use them until they fail me). That’s all.

And I know spot Compared to miners and equities are different and don’t rhyme together perfectly but they do kind of rhyme. And I fully know the markets don’t care what I think and they don’t work logically. I just follow and look at set ups and think the next couple of years you folks will “be right” in the metals sector and hope you are actually.

All FYI and I wish you well in the new year. We need it.
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