HSBC run out of room to store gold?

From Wall Street Journal today:

Fleets of armored trucks piled with gold bars and coins have been streaming out of midtown Manhattan in one unexpected consequence of the gold craze.

Amid gold’s rise — it has gained 32% this year and reached a record on Monday — investors have been loading up on bullion and coins. One big problem now is where to store it. The solution from HSBC, owner of one of the biggest vaults in the U.S.: somewhere else.

HSBC is evacuating the retailer customers space in favor of institutional investors? Retail customers buy all sorts of gold and silver coins, and they need to be sorted in storage, thus costly to maintain. While institutional investors tend to buy standard gold bars and hold them longer.

Lets take a look at some numbers.

Demand for physical gold, including bars and coins, is projected to rise 21% this year to 52.3 million troy ounces, the highest in history, according to CPM Group. Based on today’s price, the total value would amount to about $61 billion.

At GoldStar, more than 1,000 new accounts are opened each month to purchase coins in retirement plans, compared to about 100 a month in 2006. Sales of American Eagle gold coins jumped 65% so far this year, according to the U.S. Mint.

“Many facilities are overloaded,” says Bob Coleman, director of customer relations at Gold Silver Vault, a depository in Nampa, Idaho. Mr. Coleman says his vault has taken in several HSBC customers, contributing to the 500% growth in new metal coming in over the past quarter.

Gold investors tend to be conservative. Many investors to buy the physical gold mostly use them to hedge against significant inflation risk. With President Obama acknowledging recently that our national debt is near its limit, the public really start to think what are all the possible consequences if our economy does not turn for good.

At Gold2Keep, our mission is to assist all of our investor customers to have the most efficient, reliable and smooth transaction, and strive to become their long term investment partner.

To start investing today, please call us today at 1-888-425-8688. One of our representatives will be more than happy to address any questions you might have.

Sean

Gold2Keep is now Top Rated Seller!

With consistent highest standard customer service and volume sales, Gold2Keep has just become ebay Top Rated Seller!

Here is what a Top Rated Seller means:

• Consistently receives highest buyers’ ratings
• Ships items quickly
• Has earned a track record of excellent service

We have 99.9% highest ratings.  We work hard every day to make our customer happy, and will continue to earn this honor, serving gold investors across the US.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your kind testimonials, and your continued business. Gold2Keep team will always be your trusted source for gold coins and billions.

Here is a screenshot on ebay:

Sean

Gold $1500 this year?

Greg McCoach, the seasoned bullion dealer, investor and newsletter writer, sees a number of factors culminating in ever-increasing prices going forward. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Greg reveals current and forthcoming events that will continue driving the yellow metal’s price northward. not the least of which involves the commercial real estate market and its “associated derivative sewage.

In this interview, Gregs talks about gold trader, Chinese, gold companies, currency and savings.

Here is a quick quote where he talks about US Mint shortage:

Here’s the other problem. Just like last year, as things got really, really tight, mints stopped making certain bullion coins and bars. We saw the Silver Eagle program stop producing for 10 or 12 weeks. We saw the U.S. Treasury stop minting the gold buffalo coins, which still are not being minted. And fractional eagles are not being minted anymore. All they’re minting is one ounce gold eagles. These scenarios tell me that things are going to get tighter, so why not buy when you can still get the stuff reasonably cheap and it’s got decent premiums?

Read the complete interview here:
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article13681.html

Gold2Keep suggest our customers invest at least 5% of their net worth into the physical gold assets, not as a way to make a wild profit, but as an insurance and hedge against high inflation.

Sean

Counterfeit 101

Today I am going to show you the basic lesson to detect a counterfeit coin. I found a great example on ebay recently. Please check it out at the following link

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110385920913

Since ebay will remove the listings sooner or later, I attach the screenshot of the actual ebay listing focusing on the picture of the coin.

You can see the coin is hallmarked “1Kg Ag .999″, but there is something essential missing: the face value. Formally a round shaped metal cannot be called a coin unless it has a monetary face value.  (Medal is the proper name for those kind of metal disks.) Usually, the counterfeiters face far harsher punishment to forge legal tender compare to forge a medal. They dare not put a face value on the counterfeit they make.

As a comparison, please see the picture of a genuine 2005 silver panda

2005 1oz silver panda

I hope this article can help you to avoid at least the most stupid trap when purchasing a coin, online or from a local shop.

Balanced Bullion and Numismatic Coin Investing

Let’s face it, bullion coins and bars behave differently than numismatic coins. When monetary policy is aimed at reflation it’s nice to have a portfolio that includes bullion coins and bars to hedge against inflation. On the other hand, when and if true prosperity returns, those with high income and/or net worth will be feeling flush and flock to numismatic coin collecting.

The key is to adjust the relative holdings of bullion coins and bars versus numismatic coins based on where we are in the cycle. Right now there is an understandable bias towards bullion but that could change. That’s why it’s important to take stock at least monthly to make sure you are best situated to weather the storm and subsequently take advantage of collecting trends of the future.

Microsoft live search cash back – a microsoft stimulus plan

Microsoft launched their “Live Search Cashback“  program last November, in an effort to improve their “bing.com” search engine against Google. They take a unique approach this time. Instead of spending money on advertising, they are giving the money directly back to online consumers. When you use their bing.com search to shop,  you will receive incentives. In the peak shopping season last year, they were giving out 35% cashback if you use bing.com search to buy products from EBAY.  This year, the cashback has varied from 8% to 20%.

Before you can earn cash back , you need to take these three steps:

1. you must have a Paypal account with a valid email address
2. register at bing.com , MAKE SURE the email you use is the same as you paypal account , this is very important , otherwise you may not get your cash back processed correctly.
3. open a ebay account if you don’t have it already.

If you are new, follow this Step-by-Step guide and you will get your cashback!

1. visit www.cashbackr.com to find the right keywords. Then go to www.bing.com , type in the keywords, lets say “gold bullion”. (You can use other key words, such as ipod, wii and buy bullion later, too.)

2. in the top of the page, you will see an ad link 8% cashback from ebay, click it

3. you are in ebay now, and you should see a green button on top of the page which says 8% cashback

4. you search you item and buy it now and you will see 8% all the way thru check out. remember you have to use the buy it now option !

5. you will get 8% up to $200 for your purchase, for this partilcular case $160 for a $2000 purchase .

6. after you complete the transaction , go back to your live search account and you should be able to see the purchase you made already in the Pending stage .

That’s easy isn’t it ? so what is the limitations ? General rule is $200 max per transaction and up to 12 transactions per ebay account.
So far there are no limit to how many accounts each one can use.

Now you know the trick , go start shopping ! If you interested in buying precious metal coins please visit our ebay store , search for  seller gold2keep . happy shopping !

Are you concerned with high inflation?

Many people buy gold to diversify their investment portfolio, or to hedge against high inflation.  We are not talking about inflation like 3-5%, we are all concerned with double digit inflation.  When the Fed prints a lot of money, and pumps them into the system, who will not be concerned?

To give you a perspective, take a look at the St. Louis Adjusted Monetary Base graph.  The monetary base is increasing at an alarming pace.

If you would like to have a good overview of what the worst scenario could be, take a look at this crash course:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-1-three-beliefs
In this crash course, it reveals the Fed system, Gold conversion history, energy cost, inflation, and many other things that you want to know about the monetary system and what it could mean for us.  True, it is a little pessimistic, but it presents so many facts and background information.  It is up to you to learn about it, draw your own conclusion and act accordingly.

I received a note from my friend who runs a large food business in UK, and here is what he said about inflation:

The government here have lost the plot sadly and the recession bites deep with inflation running wild in the food industry. 15% +inflation is unhealthy with people struggling with every day costs.

And interesting enough, here is a report from Bloomberg on low inflation in UK:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aD4laHxwSo7c&refer=europe

Do not trust everything you read in the media, always investigate and verify.

For more information on inflation (never take the government figure at its face value), visit:

http://www.shadowstats.com/

The amount of investing in Gold has increased five folds over the normal period.  People are finding ways to hedge against the worst scenario.

There’s nothing like Gold

There’s nothing like gold.

When it’s time to invest, there is nothing is gold.  Gold has been used for investment and currency for thousands of years, and has the vital role in stabilizing the world financial system.  Because of its rare characteristics, it is recognized worldwide as the most valuable investment.

As the financial system evolves, gold has been separated from the currency direct conversion, for example, in the US, since President Nixon.  If you look at the inflation figure when gold had fixed conversion rate with currency, the inflation figure was virtual zero for over a hundred years.  Gold is probably the only “currency” that people trust to hedge against inflation.

In today’s modern investment portfolio management, gold should account for about 10% of everyone’s investment portfolio to provide some meaningful assurance against hyper inflation.  With the speed that the FED prints and pumps money into the system, it is widely speculated that high inflation will follow soon.

Gold2Keep was started by average investor just like you.  When our founders started investing in gold, we found there are virtually no small investor friendly retailer.  That is how Gold2Keep started.  Our goal is to provide average investor with the most easy to use online shopping site, use our business intelligence analysis tool to lock in the best price available, so that our customers (investors) can invest in gold with peace of mind.

Our management and advisory team is consist of IT professionals, CPA, CFA, and Business consultant.  Gold2Keep is a service by investors for investors.