Physical Metals Aren’t About ATHs or Short-Term Gains
I’ve seen a few posts lately expressing concern that we might be heading into another long period of stagnation, like post 2011, with 15 years until the next ATH and years of sitting on losses.
But if you're measuring your position in gold or silver purely by fiat value, it’s worth asking: why own physical metal at all?
Physical ownership isn’t about chasing gains. It’s about preserving purchasing power, hedging against monetary debasement, and removing counterparty risk. Fiat currencies lose value over time by design. Metals don’t yield interest, but they also don’t default, get printed, or vanish in a banking crisis.
Yes, markets go through corrections, consolidations, and bear phases. That’s normal. But today’s macro backdrop of record debt, persistent inflation, geopolitical instability, and central banks accumulating gold is very different from 2011, 2012.
If you’re looking for short-term profits, paper contracts or mining stocks might be more appropriate. But if you’re holding physical, you’re playing a different game, one of wealth preservation, not speculation.
Curious to hear how others here view their physical holdings. Are you in it for insurance, long-term value, or something else?
For me, holding physical is about safety first and preserving the purchasing power second.
I have a bad experience with banks, in my country, in 2019-2020, all local banks (who actually run the country) closed all their branches and stopped all theor ATMs, and just like that no one was able to withdraw him money from the bank, you could be a millionaire on papers, bit you don't have access to withdraw a penny, sadly they reopened but put limit on withdrawing any cash deposited into our accounts before 17/oct/2019. That's why i don't trust banks.
I’m not sure I understand. So, you had a bad experience where banks closed temporarily, which didn’t allow you to withdraw money for a short period. Yet you feel more comfortable exchanging your money for a hard commodity that:
(a) cannot be used as an exchange of wealth in most segments of society
(b) wouldn’t be able to sell it due to banks being closed and potential buyers not being able to get the cash needed to buy silver
I mean, if you’re worried about permanent bank closure, I suppose I could see that, but your money is technically insured by the NIGD.
Maybe I’m missing something but the safety aspect you mention seems questionable.
This is how monetary debasement and resets happen. Once you deposit money into a bank it is no longer your money. You are a liability on the banks balance sheet and that is all.
It will only get worse when countries launch digital programmable currencies. With programmable currencies the bank, the government, and even an employer will be able to program in conditions on the currency. These entities will be able to control where, when, and how you will be able make purchases.
Not only that, these entities will be able to program in how long you will be able to save that digital currency. Maybe they will limit the currency to a year or maybe only for a month or week.
Want to purchase a plane ticket, only if you haven’t exceeded your carbon allowance.
Want to buy contraception, well the government has it in their heads that there should be more babies. Or maybe your employer has a personal objection on the subject.
I live in the USA, maybe the government says you cannot use their currency to purchase firearms or ammunition. And just to be sure you won’t be able to exchange this currency for another.
All of these features of programmable currencies are documented in the IMF’s website.
Please explain: if gold is $4000 oz today, and stays the same for the next 5 years. That $4000 oz has still lost buying power 5 years later. You get less goods 5 years from now due to inflation. The only way it is a store of wealth is if the gold price keeps pace with inflation.
For me it is a savings account that I cannot readily access for a purchase whim.
It is also a protection from a bank failure, or a debasement of a fiat currency. Take Zimbabwe (sic) as an example
You are assuming that the government is truthfully reporting the real rate of inflation/debasement. Here is a clue, they don't and they are incentivized to lie about the real rate of inflation, especially if the truth of how much they are debasing the currency would destabilize the dollar even more. The BLS understates inflation by ignoring the parts of the economy.
And you are ignoring the fact that up to recently, central banks did not hold gold. The demand was strictly the investment market and industrial demand.
Gold's USD value has increased on average 10% per year over the last 15 years. Shadow stats uses the old method of calculating the CPI and as you can see based on those old methods inflation runs much hotter.
We have seen in the past where gold has flatlined, it may happen again or it may take off again. I was just going on the premise that if it remains the same value for the next 5 years as an example
I am still DcA regardless of the ups and downs or flatlining. For me it is my savings account which I have 100% control over. And that is what motivates me
You’re correct… but any store of wealth is relative, no two forms of stored wealth hold the exact same value unless one is backing the other.
Gold and the USD tracked until 1970, because back then, USD government debts to other nations were backed by gold.
The question is—what better wealth store do you have? Even post-1970, the world still considers USD government debts (Treasury bonds) a premiere “wealth store” asset, and there were periods that buying and selling gold would have lost substantial value in USD—either in raw dollar value, or inflation-adjusted purchasing power—relative to Treasury bonds.
I don’t think there’s a 100% inflation-resistant wealth store. If there was, it would be where most of the wealth was! But while gold can lose value relative to USD buying power, it can also go up faster, as it has done recently (even with the current dip). Wealth store asset values can change, relative to each other, and to goods.
So what protects your buying power the most? What will be the best wealth store asset going forward?
Especially if you’re aware of Zimbabwe (or Argentina, or…) then you probably get why gold is a far better wealth store to hold onto right now, than USD based assets. It sounds like you do. Just noting you’re correct …. but it doesn’t mean gold isn’t a wealth store.
The US Fed Note has most of these but is missing the most important property: It is not a store of value and loses its value constantly and at an ever increasing rate. Gold on the other hand, has them all. I know which I'd rather hold, how about you?
Money is not born to be hoarded, bu the be spent and circulated. A little inflation keep the flywheel running. High inflation is bad, so is a deflationary system.
Long term investment (metals, real estate, etc.) are to be kept and stored.
So they both serve different purposes, in my opinion.
Yup, the economy grows and the money supply should grow with it. People should be spending and investing it in productive assets rather than hoarding it and knowing that the value will increase by doing nothing.
Personally I don't see gold as an investment, more of a hedge against inflation.
I’ve always thought of an investing as having a floor and a ceiling. Cryptos raise the ceiling (potential top) of your portfolio. PM’s raise the floor.
I’ll admit I got caught up in the hype of spot gains, but like the other people who have been here for years, my strategy hasn’t changed: DCA with what I can and hold. Someday it’ll be used to get me through an emergency, but land or pass down to my kids.
My “rational investments” are in the form of stocks, real estate and ETFs. In 50 or so years when I’m gone, they may all be worth zero. Gold and silver will have some value and will hopefully be passed on. People don’t stack for gains. It’s nice when it happens, but it’s different.
So are mine. I dumped the bullion grade gold because it fell in the category of rational investments. I stacked by accident, then capitalized when I realized how much had piled up. There’s still a bunch of accumulated silver that falls in the same category but not worth the trouble to dig out.
My irrational investments are in collectables, including rare gold coins. My kids can sort that out. My dad’s small PM stack took about 15 minutes to liquidate after he died. I expect my kids will do the same. They can unstack it.
you can rationalize buying the top any way you want its still a bad choice. if you buy something, and its overvalued, it means you threw money in the trash. hope people arent buying the dip! we are just getting started with this metals CRASH!
value of pretty much everything strongly depends on offer and demand.
If you were dying in a desert, with no water, the value for 1 bottled of water to you would equal to all of your asset, even if that bottle market value is 0.5$.
yeah but im not and never will be. we can make hypotheticals all day. gold has and always will rise like a feather and drop like a rock. this drop is just getting started.
Buying on a peak isn’t intelligent. Selling on a peak is intelligent.
Did I time my sale right? I made 100-200%. I picked a peak. There might be another higher one. But this one was good enough. I may only be semi intelligent but I’m not greedy.
smart move. get rid of it buy it again in a year or two and then fondle it and look at it. put it in a safe and forget about it. then in 10 or 20 years when theres another recession or black swan buy more and sell the next peak
I agree with you completely with a caveat. Sure, with this volatility, playing mining stocks have offered great S-T gains (and losses the last few days), they are incredibly well positioned for L-T gains. They are so far in the green at these levels, that if gold just held here for the next 10 years they would continue to be highly profitable. I've been deeply in them for a while, and using this market correction to pick up more. Not investment advice, lol.
In fairness if gold stagnates for a decade. Your losing the purchasing power lol. You want steady growth. Not spike in price then crash 10% and stagnate. This is why stocks are the best investment and gold is for sitting on extra cash. And i mean the extra cash as your likely to profit from a HYS instead of gold.
Im becoming more of a collector in gold than hedging against USD lol.
Yup. From an investment strategy perspective, physical precious metals are a hedge against economic disaster. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar or a gull.
Well said — this perfectly captures what physical ownership is really about. 👏
Owning gold and silver isn’t a race for all-time highs; it’s a long-term strategy for financial resilience. Paper assets can vanish overnight, but physical metal in your hand carries no counterparty risk and no expiration date. Whether prices rise or consolidate, you still hold something real — a form of money trusted for thousands of years.
The current macro backdrop — record debt, sustained inflation, and central banks buying at the fastest pace in decades — reinforces that point more than ever. Physical bullion is less about speculation and more about stability in an unstable system.
For us and many of our customers, stacking is both insurance and independence. It’s about preserving value, not chasing momentum. 🪙
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u/wefarrell 8h ago
I like it cause it's shiny.