Did I Buy Too High? Let’s Talk About It

Every so often my phone rings and I can hear it in the voice before the person even says it. The price has dropped since they bought, and they’re wondering if they made a mistake. Sometimes they’re wondering if we took advantage of them. I understand that feeling, and I want to talk about it honestly.

My $48 silver

I started buying silver when it was around $3 an ounce. I kept buying as it climbed, year after year, all the way up to $48. Then the price dropped out, and silver slid back down to somewhere between $12 and $15 an ounce.

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t worried when silver was climbing, and I wasn’t bummed out when it fell. The price was never the point. From the very first ounce, this has always been about security for me, about protecting what my family has worked for against a dollar that buys a little less every year. I still own that silver today, and I still have no plans to sell it. For what it’s worth, silver today is trading well above $48.
That’s the whole secret. When you know why you own something, the price on any given day just doesn’t carry much weight.

The same old story

For as long as we’ve been in business, somebody out there has been saying the same thing: prices are about to go off the charts, the system is about to collapse, and you’d better buy everything you can right now. Decades later, folks are still saying it, just with a new date attached.
Back when the national debt was under a trillion dollars, people said it couldn’t possibly last. Today it’s around $40 trillion. Just a few years ago, many voices were certain a massive recession was right around the corner. We’re still waiting. The debt is a real concern, and nobody should pretend otherwise, but “the world ends next Tuesday” isn’t analysis. It’s a sales pitch.

So why do good, smart people keep believing it? I think it’s because a story is more exciting than a chart. Urgency feels like wisdom when you’re nervous. And the people who make those predictions rarely come back to say they were wrong. They just move the date and tell the story again.

What the numbers actually show

Here’s what’s really happened. Gold started 2024 around $2,000 an ounce and started 2025 around $2,600. This past January it hit a record near $5,600, and today it sits around $4,350. Silver spiked to around $121 in January and is trading in the mid-$60s today.

If you bought right at the top in January, you might feel stung right now. But if you bought gold two years ago, you’re well ahead. The long-term direction of precious metals has been up for more than twenty years, with plenty of dips along the way. Nobody rings a bell at the top or the bottom, and nobody can promise you tomorrow’s price. What history shows is that patient owners have been rewarded far more often than panicked sellers.

Buying at $70, $80, or higher is okay

I mean that. If you’re buying metal for safety and security, the price on the day you buy matters far less than why you’re buying and who you’re buying from. Whether it’s a simple bullion bar or a coin that’s going to be the pride of your collection, buy from someone you trust, at a fair price, and buy what makes sense for you and your family.

If you’re a day trader moving in and out of the market, prices matter to you every hour. But most folks who trade that way already know the market’s rhythm, and they don’t listen to the noise either. They pay attention to what’s actually happening in the world today and draw on many reliable sources, not someone’s clickbait prediction.

If the price drops after you buy

I’ll be honest with you. We don’t set the price of gold and silver. The whole world does, every minute of the day. When you bought from us, you paid what the market said that metal was worth that day, and any other honest dealer would have told you the same.

The ounce of silver in your safe is the same ounce it was the day you bought it. It hasn’t changed. Only the number on the screen has.

Turn down the noise

Most of our clients tell me they never plan to sell. If that’s you, then today’s price is just a number. Your metal is doing exactly what you asked it to do: sitting quietly, real and in your hands, protecting your family.

So turn down the noise. Spend a little less time with the doom videos and a little more time with the people you love. And if you ever feel that knot in your stomach, give us a call. We’ll talk it through, like we always have.

Johnny on the Spot is a no-nonsense article series about precious metal investing by Johnny Estes, CEO of CMI Gold & Silver.

The post Did I Buy Too High? Let’s Talk About It first appeared on CMI Gold & Silver.