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If any of you have ever used the Kitco Pool Account trading, I would appreciate some feedback on it.

https://online.kitco.com/bullion/comple ... html#kpool

I was kind of leaning toward putting some money in that rather than other paper trading. Transaction fee is only like $8.98 if you do it online. They have a pretty decent spread between the price they buy at vs the price they will sell it to you at, so this drives the cost of doing this up a little. I don't think the spread is any greater than that of our local coin shop though. Could do any size of order you want though and don't have to worry about low volume like on some of the futures trading. I have never been a big fan of "leveraging". Don't want to risk it unless I can do without it!

On another point, I had an interesting conversation about physical PM's today with a financial adviser. He says that on transactions of bullion type material, the coin dealers don't have to record anything to the "powers that be" if it's less than $10,000. Therefore, no capital gains or income tax if you do it correctly. Never thought about doing that but was surprised that he brought it up since he is a financial adviser. Any thoughts????

I am like so many others right now. Kind of worried about the investments I have getting into the hands of the wrong people like what happened to the unlucky ones at MF Global. From that standpoint alone, I guess stay diversified and have some physical in the safe deposit box just in case. Can't hurt anything! Don't get out of this area too much but the economy here in SE IA is far from showing any signs of recovery.

I had an economics instructor that predicted a lot of this back in 94-95 and he said at that time, "the next one we will have blood in the streets!" He was big on exponential growth and how the systems that rely on that principle just can't last for ever (energy, economics, even water supplys). Well guess what, here we are. Just wish I would have listened to him a little closer, could have retired by now (36).

mbailey1234 wrote:On another point, I had an interesting conversation about physical PM's today with a financial adviser. He says that on transactions of bullion type material, the coin dealers don't have to record anything to the "powers that be" if it's less than $10,000. Therefore, no capital gains or income tax if you do it correctly. Never thought about doing that but was surprised that he brought it up since he is a financial adviser. Any thoughts????

perhaps it's by state, or just coin shop, but I've sold 30oz before to a coin dealer and he said they were required to get a copy of my driver's license and write it all down. This is in Texas.

mbailey1234 wrote:If any of you have ever used the Kitco Pool Account trading, I would appreciate some feedback on it.

https://online.kitco.com/bullion/comple ... html#kpool

I was kind of leaning toward putting some money in that rather than other paper trading. Transaction fee is only like $8.98 if you do it online. They have a pretty decent spread between the price they buy at vs the price they will sell it to you at, so this drives the cost of doing this up a little. I don't think the spread is any greater than that of our local coin shop though. Could do any size of order you want though and don't have to worry about low volume like on some of the futures trading. I have never been a big fan of "leveraging". Don't want to risk it unless I can do without it!

On another point, I had an interesting conversation about physical PM's today with a financial adviser. He says that on transactions of bullion type material, the coin dealers don't have to record anything to the "powers that be" if it's less than $10,000. Therefore, no capital gains or income tax if you do it correctly. Never thought about doing that but was surprised that he brought it up since he is a financial adviser. Any thoughts????

I am like so many others right now. Kind of worried about the investments I have getting into the hands of the wrong people like what happened to the unlucky ones at MF Global. From that standpoint alone, I guess stay diversified and have some physical in the safe deposit box just in case. Can't hurt anything! Don't get out of this area too much but the economy here in SE IA is far from showing any signs of recovery.

I had an economics instructor that predicted a lot of this back in 94-95 and he said at that time, "the next one we will have blood in the streets!" He was big on exponential growth and how the systems that rely on that principle just can't last for ever (energy, economics, even water supplys). Well guess what, here we are. Just wish I would have listened to him a little closer, could have retired by now (36).

This pooled account concept is good for Kitco and not so good for one who wishes to buy PM's IMVHO. It is a very expensive layaway program, especially if you have multiple deposits for a single physical delivery. With all due respect, I don't think you understand what this fractional unit layaway program is vs what you call low volume futures. What do you mean by low volume? Do you mean low holiday volume like today where there were only approx 19,711,500 notional silver ounces traded on the large contracts? Each full sized contract is for 5,000 ounces, which is where Kitco and others layoff their risk. How many ounces do you suppose were traded at Kitco's fractional layaway program today? As far as leverage is concerned, you don't have to use any.

Be careful about counterparty risk and losing your assets in the wrong hands. Kitco's pooled account is not regulated, nor transparent. Any assets held with them would be subject to pure counterparty risk. Keepimg in mind of course that the Quebec tax agency has accused Kitco in gold sales tax scams. Guilty or not, I'd give pause to such consideration. With MFG there was also advanced warning of trouble when it was reported that their capital requirements were short with plenty of time to act. Later, MFG was downgraded then failed just days later. The failure was largely due to Corzine's grand delusion to make MFG the next Goldman and instead of holding the segregated funds in US treasuries, sought Italian sovereigns. Segregated funds were supposed to be held in the lowest risk assets but the excess basis in Italy coupled with insane gearing seemed like easy alpha. Luckily I knew about these aspirations and have my funds held with other brokers who only focus on facilitating trades. Futures have been around for a long time. My brokers will continue offering their services just the same as they have for many decades. Be wary of programs and schemes that are not regulated or transparent in any way.
Always DYOD.
Cheers!

Prior post edited for additional detail.
Cheers!

Thanks, point taken. I thought it may be worth digging into.

I am trying to keep things diversified and PM's are where I am not involved much right now. This recent pull back is the opportunity I was waiting for and would like to get around 15-20K in them during the next year. This part is just sitting in a nothing money market account now but at least it's not losing!

After speaking with Kitco today, I didn't have a very warm fuzzy afterwards.

Right or wrong, me and two of my buddies split a box of 500 eagles from providentmetals tonight. They have the best price of any I've seen online. Not as much fun as the last trip to Vegas but hopefully the return may be better someday!???? We decided they would work good for chips in the home poker game!

mbailey1234 wrote:me and two of my buddies split a box of 500 eagles from providentmetals tonight. They have the best price of any I've seen online. Not as much fun as the last trip to Vegas but hopefully the return may be better someday!???? We decided they would work good for chips in the home poker game!

great purchase -- as cool as it would be, I'm not sure I would use them for poker chips though

mbailey1234 wrote:After speaking with Kitco today, I didn't have a very warm fuzzy afterwards.

Right or wrong, me and two of my buddies split a box of 500 eagles from providentmetals tonight. They have the best price of any I've seen online. Not as much fun as the last trip to Vegas but hopefully the return may be better someday!???? We decided they would work good for chips in the home poker game!

Hi mbailey! Welcome to the madness.

ASE's for poker chips??! Wow, you guys have much richer tastes than I can afford! I use my cull half dollars for that.

Good for you on splitting a monster box. To use an often quoted saying here: "If you don't hold it, you don't own it."

JFF makes money on both paper and real PM's. I am warming up to the idea, but feel I need to go back to higher math school first before I join in the fun.