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The above introductory comments are edited excerpts from an article* by “Commodity Trade Mantra” (investing.com) entitled 4 Reasons To Invest In Silver Rather Than Gold;
The following article is presented courtesy of Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!) and has been edited, abridged and/or reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. This paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.
The article goes on to say in further edited excerpts:
Why silver? Well, not only does it share similar characteristics to gold, including:
- acting as an inflationary hedge,
- being a well of value in uncertain times and
- a safe-haven asset
it also possesses four unique characteristics which could propel its price skyward.
1. Silver’s prevailing use is in industry
Unlike gold, which is primarily used as an investment vehicle, the prevailing use of silver is in a wide range of industrial applications. In 2013, 54% of total silver demand came from industry, predominantly in industrial fabrication and electronics.
The demand for silver for use in electronic, electrical and chemical applications is expected to grow, with a range of new technologies requiring silver in their products. Key among them is the rapid growth in the production of photovoltaic solar panels, as silver is a key component of the manufacturing process. In China alone, the quantity of photovoltaic solar panels manufactured has doubled every year since 2003 and with this expected to continue, that industry alone will require around 15 million ounces of silver annually.
2. Silver is in shorter supply than gold
A key driver of silver prices is its rarity, and the amount of available silver is far lower than gold, even though it’s 17.5 times more abundant in the earth than gold. This is because over 90% of all silver ever produced has been consumed primarily in industrial applications.
Even more pressing is that mine production is currently incapable of keeping up with demand, placing greater pressure on scrap metal and recycling. In 2013, despite silver production from mining jumping a healthy 3.5% compared to 2012, it only produced enough silver to meet 76% of the total physical demand in that year. While mine production will continue to grow, this shortage will continue for the foreseeable future with the major silver miners having cut back on investing in the development of new projects after precious metal prices tanked.
The long lead times to bring new silver mines online will also act as a headwind for supply, because even with renewed investment from silver miners in developing new mines, it will take time for them to come online.
These factors, along with growing industrial demand, will certainly act as tailwinds to push the price of silver higher. They are also the reason silver prices are far more volatile than gold, with daily price movements typically being far larger than gold, which means investors must be willing to stomach far larger downdrafts.
3. Silver has failed to maintain its correlation with the price of gold
Silver has been hit far harder than gold since the wheels fell off the bull market at the end of 2012, when the Fed began tapering quantitative easing. While gold is down 31% from its bull market high of $1,873.70 per ounce, silver has plunged 58% from its bull market high of US$48.58 per ounce.
The gold-to-silver ratio, which measures how many ounces of silver are required to buy an ounce of gold, has continued to widen since then. Historically there has been a close correlation between the price of gold and silver, but since the end of the bull market, this close correlation has dropped away and is now well outside of the average ratio of 47 ounces of silver per ounce of gold.
We can see how far the ratio has widened when considering that at the height of the gold bull market it took 44 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold, and now the gap has grown to 63 ounces.
4. Silver miners have been hit far harder and are more attractively priced than gold miners
When precious metal prices collapsed at the end of 2012, the prices of precious metal miners plunged, with silver miners being among some of the worst affected. While the majority of gold miners have seen their share prices bounce back nicely since the start of this year on the back of the gold rally, the share prices of silver miners have lagged behind. This sees a number of silver miners trading with some very attractive valuations in comparison to gold miners…
Editor’s Note: The author’s views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.
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I like Silver because:
1. It has much less BLING connected with it and therefore it offers investors much less public notoriety when buying and/or selling Silver than Gold.
2. It cost less to buy and sell (per oz) and that alone allows Silver to look very attractive to potential new PM investors!
3. If the Gov’t. declares that private Gold ownership is no longer allowed, it is quite possible that they will not also include Silver in that order, which will give Silver investors some additional time to reposition their portfolios.
4. Silver jewelry attracts much less attention than Gold and therefore is safer to wear in public and/or own which will increase the demand for Silver, especially in the Third World.
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