I would not invest in silver or gold. Commodities can screw you over. If you find some cheap peices of sterling, or get some silver coins hold on to em for a while and see if the stuff appreciates, or sell it now for a quick payback. I have been talking to a guy who pays 19.5 times the face value of a silver coin. I am really thinking about dumping all the coins I have on him. He pays you in cash money. The track record of precious metals is really, really bad. It is a good time to have some of the stuff, and a great time to be selling it but I wouldn't advise investing a whole lot into it, and if you are hell bent on it I would buy the Vanguard precious metals fund. Enjoy some of the upside and only some of the risk.
You can buy and sell as much as you want in an IRA. I was buying calls on triple levered bear etf's and selling within a week last year. No timeframe on holding or selling. However, I still doubt it could make sense. You can't hold collectibles outright in an IRA. You would have to start a company to buy collectibles and invest in that company rather than own them outright. Then you can't invest in a company you own more than half of so you would have to have a front man. Then if you got audited, you would probably get hammered because it's all just a huge sham to buy collectibles in your IRA. That may have to do with the poor economy and people trying to think outside of the box to make money too. That's an interesting question. I'm not sure if that's a permissible investment or not for a Roth. It may depend on what ends up being in the storage unit.
Read an article the other day where a guy said he was most bearish on Silver and oil of all the commodities. I hope he's right, about the oil anyway.
I also dabble in collectibles, but the collectibles market is extremely volatile. To make money consistently one must have deep knowledge of some very narrow fields and must also keep up with the market in those collectibles, which is a lot of work. I mainly do this to make my hobbies pay for themselves and make a few sheckles for pocket money, so that I can devote my extra income into investments.
They say to buy when there's blood in the streets. I wonder if investing in the Nikkei while it's getting hammered right now would be a good idea. Maybe let it hit rock bottom and then buy.
EWJ. It isn't indexed to the nikkei, like I thought, but is neck deep in Japanese large caps. I guess that will cover me. I'm not in this for the long haul.
