Hard Money Newsletter Review

Why Jeff Nielson Is Good For The Silver Investor

Note: Updated 4-27-2010

I’ve been following Jeff Nielson for quite some time now. I believe that for the average silver coin or silver bullion investor, because his writing is succinct and honest in it’s treatment of a very emotional investment sector.

This is information that the small silver coin investor can appreciate and trust.

I originally “discovered” his silver articles around the web. He does cover a broad range of related topics, but I prefer to stick with the silver articles.

He also shows up at Lemetropole Cafe and other sites from time to time because of his willingness to “treat” price manipulation.

His main “home” is Bullion Bulls Canada. You might try him there first to get broad sense of where he is coming from.

The crux of his writing for me is the fact that he understands and treats manipulation – in addition to covering the fundamentals.

You can trust Neilson for this…which is a relief…It is rare to find writers who approach precious metals with a balanced approach.  It one thing to be “all about” the fundamental and/or technical analysis, or focused solely on the blatant crimes of manipulation being carried out on daily basis, in broad daylight. But to balance these requires a strong determination and commitment to the truth, no matter how unpleasant, bullish, or bearish.

It is painful to face the inconvenient truth about precious metals, but imperative that one recognize the opportunity to not simply make money, but too loose as little as possible.

About Jeff Nielson

As I mentioned above, Jeff Nielson is from Canada and is a writer/editor for Bullion Bulls Canada (BBC).

His background is law and economics.

Bullion Bulls Canada provides general macro-economic and political commentary, since the precious metals markets are among the most complex (and misunderstood) in the world.

What Can Jeff Nielson and Bullion Bulls Canada Can Do For Silver Investor

Bullion Bulls Canada (BBC) also provides basic coverage of Canadian precious metals mining companies. For anyone ready to leap from bullion to bullion producers, this would be a good place to start. Ultimately the mainstream focus will turn to the producers, so you can get ahead of the crowd now, or use it a resource if you have some money to gamble with.

Another feature about Neilson and BBC  that I subscribe to can be summed up by how Nielson spells out his objective: “To slice through the veil of propaganda which taints most mainstream “news” organizations – and deceives rather than informs the general public”.

Again, it is uplifting, if not sobering to have a few places like this to turn to as we experience this great bull market and it’s accompanying grand wall of worry. Nielson’s writing provides a clear voice you can turn to when you need to get back to a fresh look at the fundamentals.

And Nielson has still another bold objective: To highlight the tremendous investment opportunities in Canadian mining (in general), and the precious metals sector, in particular.

From Nielson’s Bullion Bulls Canada: “Even with current prices for precious metals, mining companies trading on Canadian exchanges are getting horrific valuations – near the lowest levels this decade. With the enormous upside still ahead in precious metals, this provides nothing less than a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity (at a time when most people are reeling from a series of economic “shocks”).”

Where to Find Jeff Nielson

Bullion Bulls Canada

A sample of one of my favorite Nielson series:

History of Silver, Part I: Metal of the Moon

I believe Doug Casey’s ongoing interview series is well-worth the time of any hard money enthusiast – even the lonely (not lowly!) silver coin or bullion investor.

(Which reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to get across to you. Silver “coins” are not necessarily the same as silver “bullion”. I am technically more interested in bullion or generic silver. The purest may resent lumping coins and bullion together, but most people new to this world will not be immediately familiar with definition of “bullion”).

Now then.

Doug Casey is the Chairman of Casey Research, a unique organization that makes it’s living on subscription services for investment reports on a variety of mostly contrary or overlooked opportunities.

This interview series is one of the many Free subscriptions Casey Research provides and again,  it is highly recommend it for the long-term view and broader market trends.

Doug Casey is a highly respected author, publisher and professional investor who graduated from Georgetown University in 1968.

He literally wrote the book on profiting from periods of economic turmoil: his book “Crisis Investing” spent multiple weeks as #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and became the best-selling financial book of 1980 with 438,640 copies sold.

The timing (of my discovery) is a bit ironic in that from a monetary standpoint, we are in a similar predicament to 1980. Even more ironic, perhaps, is the fact that I saw Paul Volcker testifying before the Senate the other day in what may be only symbolic, but nevertheless interesting, given Volcker’s role as Federal Reserve Chairman in the early 80’s.

I look forward to the weekly interviews with Doug Casey because he stands for fundamentals and the long-term – with an eye for interesting recommendations for securities in the short term. And he is one of the few truly outspoken.

Additionally, he covers some broad topics like this recent one on Haiti and this one on education.

Here’s an excerpt from the “education” interview:

“Put it this way. The quality of a person can be determined by how he relates to three critical verbs: Be, Do, and Have. The classical liberal arts show you how to “be” – they help form your essence, your character, your will. The mechanical arts show you how to “do”; they are important, but really are just acquired skills. As a consequence of what you are, and what you can do, you “have” – acquire goods and money and reputation.”

The fundamental analysis is a key for any silver coin investor who desires some semblance of sanity in the world of derived price management and volatility.

Publications like this one, provide this much needed semblance.

Investment Underground, published by Contrarian Profits, another offshoot (this one genetically) of the Agora ‘Goliath’ is another one, you can skip.

We silver coin investors are a funny bunch. You see, folks lucky enough to have figured out a way and a place to store what little wealth they have left over have come to this from many a direction.

Typically, we are contrarian to begin with, salt of the earth types, with not a lot of extra income lying around to gamble with.

But there is a world that opens up around you when you discover the simplicity in holding silver. (Whether that world is above or below is a matter of debate).

Many find the idea of buying physical silver for investment uncomfortable and about as appealing as a romp through the wilderness on foot that leads to a campsite in the middle of nowhere.

This is okay with us because, as a group, we like low-impact wilderness and the lessons learned in fending for oneself. This includes a level of a preparedness that comes only after considerable thought and research.

As much as we might otherwise find the plushness of the towering casinos and the allure of the fancier things in life, our resource-circumstance limits us to a different existence.

However, we are never fully disconnected from the bright lights, big cities, and indoor pluming – no more than silver can be eliminated from most of inner workings that make these modern wonders possible.

Therefore, our quest includes the need to know how our precious metal functions in the modern world, whether we are considering the markets, the industries that use silver, or the greater macro-economic or geopolitical trends that influence the value of our little stash of silver coins.

So in the quest for knowledge, there is much crossover, and we invariably come across letters and publications like “Investment Underground” – and so will you.

When you have a passion for this market, and an open curiosity, it’s easy to lose a sense of oneself and find yourself pouring over an investment offer carefully designed to lure you in.

Have fun with it. For there will perhaps come a day for this in the not-too-distant future – when you find yourself in a position to ‘leverage’ your silver coin investment. When that day comes, you’ll likely return to this email newlsetter. But for now, here’s the deal:

First off, when you sign up for investment underground,(watch the pop-up),you get a pretty steady flurry of content in your inbox.

And this part of a well-oiled machine. So, you can sit back and dabble a little from time to time – pick out a headline and then leave it be.

This is information marketing at its best. So, you’ll need to learn how to read with your silver coin identity firmly entrenched and allow yourself to dream a little, while checking any remorse for not being able to gamble – at the door.

Much of the content is specifically designed to hook you into reading and then, clicking. More often not, you get stuck reading what turns out to be an advertisement for one or another investing program.

Also, if you’ve read Addison Wiggin or will Bonner over at the Daily Reckoning or if you simply keep up with Chuck Butler’s Daily Pfennig, you can get the gist of what these e-mails cover in a broad macro-sense. You can pretty much stick with those guys. You’ll get the same message:

With the recent and ongoing financial crisis, and the amount of information sloshing around out there, crossing in and out and overlapping with similar content to Investment Underground, it makes it even more strenuous to put up with a message that shoots a little bit to the side or over the head of the typical silver investor.

And as much as I’d like to support the family affair (Will Bonner is Bill Bonner’s son), things must, at some point, come back down to earth for the silver coin investor.

Well, unfortunately for them, it doesn’t speak loud enough to the average investor.

In that most of us are just looking for a way to acquire a few more coins, and get a better understanding of how and why and what goes on in the macro world and how it affects our small world.

We need to make the connections between the broad market conditions and how they impact things that matter most to us like, silver supply tightness, industrial versus investor demand, and the ongoing and relentless price manipulation.

Of course, very few investing news sources currently give the time to those specific areas of interest, but we believe in time they will as more people will need to know.

Like many other newsletter publications, and yes, this one is free (so what could it hurt to try it out), they seem better directed toward where a lot of us are likely to be in a year. Further down along the way, maybe coming up out of the canyon, a little heavier with a few more coins on board.

But again, for the average silver investor, who has a sense of why silver is important, and where it will likely go in terms of price. You can probably skip this one.

I wouldn’t say that SafeHaven was too advanced for the average silver investor.

As a resource, it’s big, broad and raw. You can pick through it if you have the time and/or energy. There are definitively jewels nestled within. They admit that they keep it simple on purpose.

Streamlined traffic serves a good in this space. Some 75,000 visitors per month get a glimpse of the precious metal story, though never enough of the silver story.  The more the merrier – unless you are not invested…then you wouldn’t really understand.

However, I believe most people would rather pay to have this type of content  filtered and delivered, and with a ‘voice’.

On the way to the forum …which was down during the week I spent putting this together, I realized that they could probably do well by sprucing things up a bit- maybe even putting together an email package of ‘highlights’ with commentary.

Time and skill = money.

For me SafeHaven represents a HUB-full of rich content.

I read a lot in this sector. I’ve been at this for a while. I get the language. And I own silver bullion, which makes me particularly sensitive to quality. I don’t the money to ’simply buy gold’. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way.

It takes one to know one and I appreciate it and realize that no perspective should be completely ignored.

I like digging into content from the ‘professional’ perspective – which is what you’ll get here.

But you don’t need to be a professional to miss the big picture. Again, it just takes one to know one and discovering the ‘truth’ is not a straight path. Professionals and academics tend to come loaded with assumptions that are considered standard.

That’s where it gets tricky, in my opinion.

For me, everything boils down to physical silver. It’s all very simple over here in silver-coin-land. I want to help regular people see this too. I’m not sure that this is a great place to reinforce what most people need to get started with something as simple as silver coins.

The masses need access to some way of protecting wealth. They may not have much, but silver is cheap enough to provide protection for very little exchange- at least for now. It won’t last long. So there is urgency to add to the emotion.

For the regular person just becoming aware of this, SafeHaven will likely feel obscure.

What I decided to do was break down there own About Us section for you.

What follows is a paragraph by paragraph break-down with my comments (as they apply to the silver coin investor (link: http://www.silver-coin-investor.com) in between.

Here’s how I see it:

SafeHaven Says:

“At some point in your life you will want to, or be forced to consider an investment program. The main criteria in choosing one that is right for you is summed up in three words “Preservation of Capital”. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it?”

Yes it does. Which is why I like silver. It is simple, fundamental, of the earth, etc. And precious metals have always been a key for wealth preservation. Of course, gold priced in dollars is expensive for folks like me. Silver is not. Silver (and gold) can be purchased at your local coin shop. And silver coins are liquid and easy to store for the regular guy.

SafeHaven Says:
“Remember, “Investing is not Saving”!”

This is where I need to part company a bit. Or maybe I’m missing something. Every one needs to save these days. Especially the average American. But a traditional savings account provides little interest, and it is denominated in dollars. Unless you believe in the official numbers and the presumption in the mainstream that their will be low inflation – if any at all – there is no way that the dollar will retain the purchasing power that it has today. So saving ‘in silver money’ makes sense. But given the market fundamentals and the relative scarcity of physical metal, silver is also a potentially ‘lucrative’ investment.

SafeHaven Says:
“The mainstream media would lead us to believe otherwise (in terms of saving, me) and seldom comment on the risks inherent in equity ownership or debt investments. They are quick to point out the positive aspects of every news event with prepared soundbites of information. They provide simple, continual commentary on the respective markets to show they are up to date with the latest developments.”

The mainstream media is the ultimate form of propaganda designed to keep the masses quiet. It has the appearance of being ‘civil’ because it currently does not use force. (Outside of creating a revolving-door ‘prison-subculture’ for moral crimes, like drug abuse).

SafeHaven Says:
“They don’t comment on developing trends until the trend is obvious to everyone; acting as cheerleaders for the greatest bull market of the twentieth century. A cautious and more reasoned approach is needed.”

Yes. Unfortunately, the reasoned approach will never be accepted. Its like trying to get and even when the media catches on to the inevitable shift, it will not likely happen without a context – like war or some other societal scapegoat.

Even today, you can read passionate discourse about the ‘morality’ of the inflation-hawks. Thus, creating a new belief paradigm about sound money – with Orwellian fact-changing all along the way.

SafeHaven Says:
“We are not permabears, nor are we bullish for the foreseeable future. The Stock Market Bubble is not our greatest concern. The Credit Bubble, however, when it inevitably implodes, will wreak havoc on all sectors of the World Economy, including the Stock Market.”

Indeed, the problem we face in the West is one of debt. We cannot afford deflation because everything we ‘own’ is financed. When the value of these assets falls, so does the servicing ability. We need ever more debt to pay off the existing debt. This is totally ignored by the media, though it is, ironically, well understood by the average American in the wake of the Madoff scandal.

SafeHaven Says:
“The articles from GoldenBar and PrudentBear are all a must read. As a starter, we suggest you read On the Manipulation of Money and Credit by Doug Noland of Prudent Bear and Inflation versus Deflation by Ed Bugos of GoldenBar. These articles help towards an understanding of the Bubble and monetary inflation.”

I would partially agree, but I also recommend that for the Average citizen looking for wealth protection or an alternative asset like silver coins, in the beginning, the ‘need’ for technical analysis will risk clouding the underlying factors – making this simple investment seem inaccessible.

SafeHaven Says:
“GoldenBar articles are published bi-weekly, and PrudentBear is published Wednesday and Friday evenings. Please visit their web sites.”

Nothing wrong with getting paid for value.

SafeHaven Says:
“If you have an interest in long-term cycles, then start with Generations and Business Cycles by Michael A. Alexander and Measuring Financial Time: The Magic of Pi by Barclay T. Leib.”

I found these recommendations somewhat tedious for my interest. I think one of the very best and broad works on Generations and Historical (inducing business) is ‘The Fourth Turning”, by Strauss and Howe

SafeHaven Says:
“Also strongly recommended is David Jensen’s In Denial of Crisis and Antal Fekete’s two series, Revisionist View of the Great Depression and The Goldbug Variations I.”

You can go there if you like, though again, for the big-picture investor, you could skip these.

SafeHaven Says:
“We won’t update every hour of every day- it is not necessary. Bull and bear markets evolve over many months and years, and a single news event has never changed the long-term direction of markets. If you have written an article, if you wish to provide a link to a newsworthy item, or if you have comments, suggestions, or recommendations, please Contact Us.”

Maybe we will submit this one.

“The site has been kept simple to allow quick download times and to keep problems with old browsers to a minimum. If you are having a problem, please email us and we will try to adjust for your browser or printer.”

Yes, it’s simple to navigate and very dense with information that you (as a silver coin investor) may put off today and possibly enjoy tomorrow.

SafeHaven Says:
“Enjoy your visit and visit often!”

Thanks, we did, but we probably won’t.

Ed Steer’s Gold And Silver Daily is a must-read – especially for the new silver coin investor.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/the-casey-difference/our-staff/21/ed-steer/

Ed Steer, correspondent-at-large for Casey Research is a keen observer of the financial scene and a director of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA).

And if that were not enough – he’s a good friend of the esteemed silver guru, Ted Butler.

So yes, The Gold and Silver Daily may be written for the serious (and passionate) silver and gold investor. However, it is a good place to hit the ground running for the relatively new on the silver and gold new scene.

This is an excellent, short and friendly read that can start you off with just about all you need to know for the basics in short term trading.

Now that doesn’t mean than the newly initiated will not to think and do some homework. There is a technical language spoken here.

And you’ll need some knowledge of how options work – especially trading on the short-side.

A few terms you will need to become familiar with include:

• Open interest

• Swaps

• Spreads

• Concentrated Short position

• Bullion banks

• Commercials

And you’ll need to get an overall sense of who these futures traders are. And what is a bullion bank?

Maybe we’ll put together a primer on gold and silver futures trading in the future, but for now, we think that if you’ve made it this far – you can handle jumping right in the what Steer has to offer.

Bookmark the site and from it. Soon your knowledge and passion for this sector will grow.

The Details:

Yes, these daily reports are useful for the more advanced trader, but again, if you are like us, and lets say that from time to time, the opportunity arises where you can add to your investment – this is a place where you can check-in and see about a few ‘extra’ signs that prices are gearing for a dip into negative territory. (Buying a few silver coins on dips).

Also, this the quintessential contrarion or non-mainstream view. In other words, what you need to expose yourself to. The view you GATA have.

The background is this:  Basically there is an ongoing battle to keep gold and silver prices low or in control, stealing money from honest investors in the process.

The gold and silver furtures market (COMEX) basically functions like a mini printing press, papering over physical gold and silver – thereby smothering the value of the physical metal.
t is all to easy to feel helpless and lose hope that there will be a fortunate ending

It is difficult to avoid channeling that helplessness into anger and then walk around with that feeling – which is ultimately unproductive.

Indeed, I cannot count the number of times I’ve begun a civil conversation about the silver markets with the un-initated that didn’t lead to some sort of emotional plea for understanding the outright crime of it all.

Even if you are skeptical that there could exist such a coordinated effort to distort prices, I would highly advise that you educate yourself about this anyway. And the Gold and Silver Daily is as good a (free) place as any.

Go there and live in this for a while and you will come to know the evidence – and probably begin to question a lot of assumptions that society makes about the motives behind those in power.

And of course, you’ll probably want to go out add a few coins to your collection.

Each Gold and Silver Daily contains:

Play by play summary of each trading day’s technicals, including price, open interest, and volume data from the futures market, as well as the mainstream view about the day’s trading.

You also get high-quality, working links to precious metals and financial news from around the world.

You get a concise overview of the latest developments in these markets – with brief comments about those articles.

Plus, from time to time, an update from the trenches of the GATA and Silver (Ted Butler) army.

Here’s an excerpt and a link to give you a flavor:

And lastly is another piece that I highlighted during the transition phase to this new column. It, too, is commentary that is not to be missed. It’s contained in a GATA dispatch with a preamble by GATA’s secretary treasurer, Chris Powell. As I said in my previous comments about this report… it’s certainly above my pay grade in places, but it’s not the parts that I don’t understand that scare me. I urge you to spend some time on this 9-page offering entitled “A Grand Unified Theory of Market Manipulation”… and the link.

There are a few ads, but we didn’t mind. They are easy to scroll through and many of them have Ed’s voice intertwined -so it doesn’t interupt the flow.

In summary:

It’s a good place to go to get a real taste of the nitty-gritty dynamics of the COMEX trade.

There is good flow and easy options to get out and follow a useful link to with the content – if you choose.

This is for more for the serious gold or  silver bug, but I think a good place for the newly initiate who want to make this more than a simple hedge you put away and forget about.

But you’ll need some of that intestinal fortitude as you go deep into the bizarre realm of the short-term, manipulated world, temporarily leaving behind the most important reasons for being here to begin with – the long term factors. I can’t stress this enough.

Those of us with a passion for silver coin investing as not only a way to protect wealth, but also for the opportunity to own something of real (and potentially great) value have a difficult time going down the road of the short-term.

Just as we are reminded of the manipulation and tight control over these (and all) markets.

As we wade into the evidence as commentary at Steer’s Daily, we can add one of the most compelling arguments for holding physical metal.

Bottom line, our world needs more people like Ed and the folks from GATA.

Here’s a list of the posts reviewed for this review. Go ahead a check them out:
What Golden Secret is the Federal Reserve Hiding?
August 22, 2009

The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!
August 21, 2009

“GFMS Cooks the Books to Make Gold Look Bad”
August 20, 2009

European Central Banks Sell No Gold…Again!
August 19, 2009

“Da Boyz” are Back in Town!
August 18, 2009

China Tell Its Citizens: “Buy Silver Now!”
August 15, 2009

ETF’s Backed By Bullion
August 14, 2009

It’s free and you really have nothing to lose in being exposed to this aspect of precious metals world.

The Monex Email Alerts are a great way for the average silver coin investor to keep up with weekly precious metals movements, and get a healthy dose of key quotes from around the PM world.

First a little bit  about Monex.

The Monex companies have been around for a long while and they are indeed, an established leader in America’s gold and precious metals investment space. They’ve done over $25 billion in precious metals transactions and have an excellent reputation for customer service.

For the silver bug who doesn’t mind placing a phone order, they offer government-minted coins, 90% and 40%, and bullion bars.

As far as silver rounds…They don’t go there.

As a small investor who can only really afford 10-20 ounces at a time,  silver rounds are nice way to hold the pure (.999)  metal at a lower premium.

We don’t really care too much about the numismatic value and we like that rounds look enough like coins that they could be traded in a worse-case scenario. If that time comes, I have faith that people will be able to figure out what the weight is worth.

We reviewed 6 weeks of Monex updates and alerts and they’ve grown on us.

Heck, we have even come to depend on them for a nice weekly wrap-up, and the great collection of quotes from some of our favorite market commentators.

For example, here’s one from Richard Russell  that stood out from the August 14, 2009 wrap-up.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK:

“From Richard Russell…What is the US government’s attitude toward allowing its citizens to own gold? . . . I believe the US government WANTS Americans to own gold. Thus, if the purchasing power of the dollar declines, there will be less public outrage if the public is protected by owning gold! How are you going to keep the public quiet if an administration devalues the dollar? Encourage them to own gold, which appears to be the Fed’s and Washington’s policy. Will the US call in gold again as they did in 1934? Forget it! It’s not going to happen.”

You get the picture. And not all of them are this long.

And they also choose from the likes of Ron Paul, Steve Forbes, Warren Buffet, Bill Bonner, and Jim Sinclair.

And, of course, we were more than pleased to see twice-mentioned (in 6 weeks), two quotes by silver guru, David Morgan.

Bravo Monex, for keeping silver on the agenda – as the silver bug can’t get testy about being left out and treated like a second fiddle.

So in each Monex weekly overview you get:

• Price Range For Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium

• Support And Resistance price levels

Support and resistance levels are interesting – even though a long-term investor doesn’t have much to gain by beng a ‘chartist’.

• And News Developments + Quotes

We love clear and concise economic overviews as they pertain to precious metals.

And you also get infrequent Monex Alerts from time to time when significant news develops in the markets – such as the recent Monday take-down in gold and silver. Monex is happy to remind us about buying on the dips – as if we needed reminding.

If you’re like me, that kind of reminder just feels like salt in an open wound.

We know that every long-term investor (especially in the PM’s) needs to have some healthy respect for the daily price and yes, the blatant and coordinated take-downs are tough to ignore.

And okay, a price dip for a regular guy without a while lot of cash serves as perhaps the last opportunity to accumulate the metal…but no one is perfect and Monex is, after all,  a business.

But we still highly recommend this FREE MONEX newsletter and appreciate its weekly arrival.