I agree with everything else in your post -- worst decision is to sell here, toss-up as to whether next worst is to wait for a month for lower prices or just buy something and close your eyes for a year.
As a very long time silver owner, I don’t really consider silver to have been “cut in half”, because the almost $50 mark set a few years back was so transitory it in essence “never happened”. Of course, it DID happen and in no way am I implying you or anyone else is delusional. I saw it, you saw it, the world saw it. But it was so transitory, it was uncatchable...except for buyers/chasers. I was super lucky to have sold some when the price was well over $40, but because the form factor of the silver I sold then was sterling flatware I had gathered over many years, by the time the refiner got it and settled me out, I “only” got about $39.50. This happened in the 1980 spike as well. The refiners knew that the price would not last and with lines of folks around the block trying to sell candlesticks, etc; they got overloaded. Very, very, very few folks rec’d over $35 at that point. Just trying to supply some context. I am not a “never sell an ounce” guy. I’ve sold silver at $8, $18, $28, and $39.5. I’ve also bought it back, but again, not much over $30. My own delusion is that I don’t believe silver ever got over $35 this last time. As such, I would encourage the dismayed among us to measure the whack from $35. Still big, let there be no doubt.
I’ve been a tad concerned over the price of Ag for a while. The chart even before Friday looked just horrible.
I remind people of two things: Silver did not leave $10 decisively behind until 2009 and it spent about 1/3rd of 2008 well under $10.
I am expressing no opinion as to the future price or direction. I have bought silver at every price between $5 and $35 but I really really slowed down above $28 and I suspect what I own, I own at about $15-17. That does not help recent buyers much, and don’t get me wrong, I’d be plenty pissed to see prices much lower than here. But I absolutely know the proper reaction is NOT to sell out. Nobody ever made money panicking. Silver is a fiendishly volatile item and always has been. We live in a world of floating currencies and the USD is at present the worst bad one. If you want to buy and sell silver as a trading matter, it’s crazy to do so with the physical because the spreads will kill you. That’s what SLV is for. This implies that he/she who wants the physical in their possession is not a flipper. If the reasons you/they/I bot silver in the first place are still in place, then that’s what should be kept in mind.
I agree with everything else in your post -- worst decision is to sell here, toss-up as to whether next worst is to wait for a month for lower prices or just buy something and close your eyes for a year.