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Silver now available at BullionVault
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GoldMoney now offers vault located in Hong Kong
• Update to stock market outlook
Silver Now Available at BullionVault
You can now buy and store physical silver at BullionVault in addition to gold. If you are already a BullionVault customer there is no need to open a separate account.
Secure Silver Bars
The silver you buy is stored securely in the same market-approved vault that BullionVault uses to store its clients' gold in London. You will own part of a large silver bullion bar, assayed and guaranteed to be at least 99.9% fine silver. Silver in the London bullion market means large bars meeting the Good Delivery specifications of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), typically weighing around 1,000 troy oz. BullionVault now enables you to buy, own and sell as little as one gram of this professional-grade silver at a time.
Low Silver Prices
There is no dealer's mark up because you trade silver directly with other BullionVault users, live online, cutting out the middleman. The market is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
No VAT Sales Tax
Private investors buying silver in the UK usually pay VAT sales tax at 17.5% but BullionVault users are fully exempted, because BullionVault is a member of the wholesale market's professional trade body, the London Bullion Market Association - there is no VAT to pay unless you withdraw your silver from the London vault. Silver withdrawal is available in whole 1,000-oz bars only.
Reserved Silver Bars
A list of bars available for you to reserve will appear once you hold enough silver in the London vault to make up one or more whole standard bullion bars. You can then select bars up to your balance, and choose to have them registered against your name. The silver then becomes "reserved" against your name, and is your exclusive property.
Click here to go to BullionVault...
GoldMoney Offers Hong Kong Vault
I was in my account area of GoldMoney yesterday and noticed that they have added the ability to buy, sell and store gold grams in Hong Kong. This is a significant development from my perspective.
One of the reasons we buy gold is as an insurance policy against the worst happening. If governments do not introduce austerity measures now, cut spending and cut their budget deficits, we will likely descend into hyperinflation. Under such circumstances the price of gold, silver and platinum will ascend into the heavens, protecting your wealth as paper currencies collapse.
The response of our current governments to hyperinflation is uncertain. But governments usually take the soft political option, which ensures that the situation will likely worsen as newly printed paper money chases the old. At some point our governments will realise that printing new money doesn't work and the dawning of that realisation will be followed by the understanding that gold, silver and platinum are the only real money. Western governments may then move to seize as much precious metals within their jurisdiction as they can.
This development by GoldMoney - the introduction of a vault in Hong Kong - will now allow investors to move a portion of their wealth away from the control of Western regimes. Diversifying your assets around the globe just got much easier.
There has been no formal press release yet from GoldMoney, and it looks as though only purchases of gold grams are available at the present time. Look for them to expand this to silver and platinum in the future. Also, going forward it would make sense for GoldMoney to allow customers to keep currency denominated in Hong Kong Dollars. I will keep you updated.
Click here to go to GoldMoney...
Update to Stock Market Outlook
Until yesterday the Standard & Poor's 500 Index logged three straight closes precisely on a key resistance level at 1,150. This level matches the January peak, after which the S&P500 corrected a mild 9%. Yesterday the index broke above that resistance level, closing at 1,159.
The Nasdaq and the Russell 2000 have already broken out past their January highs and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is not far from exhibiting its own breakout.
In my 2010 Market Outlook I noted that "
The stock markets have rallied uninterrupted for nine months now. Soon a correction will come. Perhaps earnings will disappoint. Perhaps there will be another Dubai. Whatever the reason, at some point a correction will come and we will need to pay close attention to the speed and ferocity of the selling. My initial view was that we will retest the March 2009 lows, but the flood of newly printed paper money may buoy the market somewhat. We will have to wait and see". Negative news fills the newspapers daily. Problems in Greece have knocked confidence across the globe. Then there is Portugal, Ireland, Spain, California, New York...the list goes on. Yet, despite all of the negativity, the stock markets have refused to give up their gains. Instead of rolling over they have experienced a mild correction and are now pushing back up.
While I still believe we will hit road blocks later in the year, with more Sovereign defaults likely, for the time being I have to amend my stock market view. I do so on the assumption that equities are being buoyed by all of the newly printed paper money. New money first finds its way into the capital markets, like stocks and bonds, and only later into the price of goods and services. I believe that we are seeing a flood of money looking for somewhere to sit, and at the present time it appears to be sitting in the stock market.
I do not suggest that you plunge back into the stock market - the downside risks are still high - but you may wish to drip-feed some money into quality stocks. Perhaps increase your holdings of precious metals stocks, or diversify into some quality energy or resource stocks. We will see how this spring rally progresses before making any further commitments.
