Catfish4u wrote:I think I looked and silver was up about $.20 this morning. Then I looked less than an hour later and it was down $.30. Did TPTB manipulate and make a lot of profit this morning? Do any posters on here take advantage and 'buy on the drop'? Or is it a sign that silver will fall further?
You are talking about a total move of about 3%. That isn't enough to excite a lot of people, unless of course they are daytraders.
There is a saying "One day does not a trend make." You can't get too excited about a big move up or down in a single day. That said, there are things to look for and I'm being very simplistic when I write about this. One thing I look at is volume. For silver I use the volume of the stock (actually it is a silver ETF- exchange traded fund) traded under the symbol SLV. If silver is moving up or down, the move will have more meaning if it is accompanied by big volume. So, let's look at what SLV did today.
SLV (the silver ETF) closed at $16.08, up 21 cents. That was ok, but I'd have thought a bigger move would have been more appropriate on a day when the Dow was down about 800 points. Volume was very solid- 33 million shares were traded today vs. an average of 14 million. I look for volume of at least 50% more than usual to help confirm significant up or down moves.
Another thing is confirmation. If a stock (or metal if you will) makes a new high or low, I'd like to see confirmation the following day. Confirmation here means that the item hits a higher high or lower low the following day, again with good volume. Often times you will get mixed signals which include:
1) Volume was above normal, but not by much (not enough to be truly significant)
2) Huge volume but the security closes the day near unchanged
And there are many many more items to consider. Nobody knows for sure whether this is the real move. It is a little like predicting an earthquake. We may know that California is overdue for a really big one in the San Francisco Bay Area, but trying to guess when it will actually occur is very, very difficult. Otherwise they would have warning sirens just like they do for tornadoes.
There is much much more. You have to understand how to look at charts with 50 day moving averages and 200 day moving averages, overbought and oversold indicators, and perhaps dozens more items. It is also important to understand currency moves and how they affect precious metals, but that is beyond the scope of this post (which is already long enough).
And there are lots of hidden agendas. Someone talking about silver and gold being ready to breakout could be someone who is getting up in years and would absolutely love to sell their piles to pay for expenses. Or someone younger who doesn't really believe in what they are preaching, but is just looking to make a quick buck. You just never know.
I think that perhaps the one thing that is best to get a handle on is your own personal situation. What is your appetite for risk? Do you tend to be a person who goes all in when you buy something and then gets clobbered when it goes down 10%-20% and it might make sense to actually buy more (since it is on sale)? Are you patient enough to hold onto silver or gold for perhaps 10-20 years? Are you disciplined enough to put only what you can afford to lose into an investment?
Bitcoin was a great example of what they call the FOMO (fear of missing out) trade. Many people who bought bitcoin purchased near the highs and got clobbered when it came down. Some of these people got hurt so badly they may never have the gumption to speculate on something again, even when it make sense.
Good luck with whatever you do.