Well…I hate to say that I told you so…but I will   As many of you remember, I was buying Silver a couple of years back (Investing in Silver) and it has turned out to be quite a strong investment!

The question now is, at $50 per ounce, is it time to sell my silver holdings and lock in significant profits?

I have a history of selling at the completely wrong time!  Recent Example:

Bought Apple @ $87 per share in about Nov. 2008, and sold it at $175…just to see it rocket to $350 about a year later.

Is silver going to do the same thing to me that Apple stock did?

All the reasons I was buying Silver in 2008 seem to still be in place.  For example, our government continues to print money and kill the value of dollars at an alarming rate!  And I suspect they will continue to do that, as the best way to pay off down our $15 Trillion of dollar denominated debt is to significantly lower the value of US dollars…which means Silver could keep running up.

Anyways, I’d appreciate the input of the financial wizards who visit this blog, so PLEASE, let me know what you think!

A couple of years ago I signed up for Volunteer Energy as my natural gas supplier here in Michigan instead of Consumers Energy.  I was told that Volunteer Energy had a track record of saving their customers approx. 15% when compared to Consumers rates.

I was told that my rate would change month to month based on the price that Volunteer Energy paid for the gas they were selling me.

Until yesterday, I had basically forgot about this switch, and assumed that Volunteer Energy was a reputable company and was going to give me the best rate that they could each month.

YESTERDAY, I get an e-mail from a company called Revolutionary Wireless.  This company is apparently a marketing company or sales company that represents Volunteer Energy.

THE SLOGAN ON TOP OF THE SALES MATERIAL THAT WAS SENT TO ME SAYS “START WITH TRUST” This is interesting to me because I did trust that Volunteer Energy was going to give me the best rate on natural gas that they could, each month, in an effort to keep my business and let me know I made a good choice when I left Consumers Energy for my natural gas.

IT APPEARS MY TRUST WAS NOT WELL PLACED.

The sales material I was e-mailed from Revolutionary Wireless lists and compares 15 months worth of Natural Gas prices between Consumers Energy and Volunteer Energy.  FOR EXAMPLE, The sales sheet says that in May 2010 that Consumers Energy was charging $6.8426 per MCF of Natural Gas, but Volunteer Energy was charging $5.49 per MCF of Natural Gas…a 20% savings!  APPARENTLY NOT TRUE FOR ME THOUGH…

I printed off my Gas bill for May 2010 and it clearly says that Volunteer Energy charged me $6.49 per MCF for my natural gas.

I then checked other months, and in April and March of 2010 I was also charged significantly more that what Volunteer Energy is advertising as their rates for those months.

Needless to say, I’m upset and will be calling the company tomorrow.  This seems like a scam to me…telling customers that you charged a certain amount in the past to try to get them to switch over…when in reality, your current customers didn’t receive the published savings…what do you think?

Please let me know if anyone else has had this problem with Volunteer Energy!  It is probably a good idea to check your energy bill today…then leave a comment and let me know…maybe it only happened to me!

Most interesting to me was a chart that showed current Gold, Silver, Platinum, etc. prices today (at record highs) and then compare them to “inflation adjusted” 1980 prices.

What the chart leads you to believe is that when you take inflation into consideration, precious metals may still have significantly more upside potential, especially if you believe that the current economic environment is similar to the environment in 1980.

I’m extremely intrigued by precious metals…and rare coins for that matter.  I’ve written quite extensively about Silver Investing as you may know, and have recently invested a significant amount of money into Natural Gas when it was around $3 a MCF.

Anywho…please pipe in on Gold, your opinions do matter to me…as in the case of Natural Gas, your feedback helps direct my actions.  That is what this blog is all about!

And BTW, I still have not decided on a vehicle.  I’m leaning towards the Ford Taurus, but am waiting until they are available with about $2500 in rebates that I can take advantage of.  They currently DO offer $2500 in rebates, but you can only get access to $1500 of those dollars if you have a competitors lease.  Unfortunatly, I own competitior vehicles, but OWN them, don’t lease them at this time.  I will keep you posted.

It seems like most commodities, the laws of supply and demand are determining the price of Natty Gas.  I’m currently reading that stockpiles are nearly 19% above their 5 year average, and that demand is down.  BUT WHY SUCH A DRAMATIC FALL?

That is where I see opportunity.  I believe that the stick has swung WAY too bearish on natural gas, and that these current depressed levels create a buying opportunity.  Yesterday I took a bit of IRA money and pumped it into the natural gas market, hoping that over the next 18 months we are able to see a much more historically normal spread between the price of oil and natural gas.  Oil traditionally and historically trades around 8 times the price of natural gas (give or take a bit).  CURRENTLY OIL IT IS TRADING AT 24 TIMES THE PRICE OF NATURAL GAS, and I don’t believe this will be sustained. 

With the current President being bent towards this idea of “cap & trade” I believe that more and more producers of electricity and going to turn to natural gas more and more as a way to offset their coal fired plants.  We will see though!

Just my two cents, I would love someone with some knowledge or a strong opinion on the subject to weigh in!  Hopefully soon, before I commit more hard dollars to my Natural Gas theories!

The commodity was selling at about $5.00 per troy ounce and he was sure it would go to $20 or higher. 

If I remember correctly, he felt that there was a worldwide shortage in silver, and that the stock market was overvalued…so if the market tanks…people will fly to silver and gold.  Wouldn’t you know that he was kind of right.  He had traveled all over the Midwest buying bulk silver @ $3500 a bag.  He got out several months ago at around $15,000 per bag of bulk silver (When the spot price was about $19.00 per ounce. 

The bottom line is that HE WAS RIGHT, and he make a killing.  I was an idiot back then and didn’t pay attention to the writing on the wall, and I did nothing.  There is nothing worse in life than procrastination.  I figured that I would look into silver sometime in future…and here I am 3 YEARS LATER…visiting the case for an investment in Silver. 

I am going to be a buyer of silver very soon.  I wish I was buying at $5 an ounce, but that ugly thing called procrastination already bit me in the behind.  The reason that I’m still a buyer at $10 an ounce is that I believe our country is going to see some significant downward pressure on our currency as we continue to print more and more dollars to bail out more and more stupid companies. 

What that means in the long run is that our every time the US prints more currency, those bills in your pocket are worth less and less (in theory)!  That being said, I see commodities like Silver and Gold seeing significant increases in value over the next few years as smart money flies to quality. 

Please weigh in with your opinion on silver, as I am in no way an expert!