This is Part 4 of an excellent 5-part series of infographics (links to the previous 3 are provided below) on various aspects of gold.

South America’s countries still rank quite high for investing, thanks to their smaller debt loads, emerging market fundamentals, and relatively high economic freedom and the lifestyle options on the continent are also very attractive. Let’s take a brief look at the situation in all but 4 of the countries there.

When we look at the price of silver and gold, especially when adjusted for inflation, we see a lot of upside potential. Because we believe that the most exciting part of a bull market is at the end of the move, we believe that the best may still be ahead of us. Let us explain with the use of a number of very enlightening charts that support our contention.

It’s hard not to see some disconnect between recent disturbing world news headlines and the market’s quiet advance but this disconnect is rational in the short term, but not necessarily in the long term. Here are 3 rules of thumb for how investors can potentially respond.

Silver has a reputation for being gold’s less desirable sister, but make no mistake, silver may still be a golden opportunity to invest in. Silver's use is already very prevalent in the photography, consumer electronics, medical, and high tech industries and a major consumer of silver in the future will be the green technology sector in products such as solar cells and batteries.

In the last few years a new “advisor” has entered the fray – the robo advisor, now being called “automated investment services”. Automated investment services are platforms that automate your investment portfolio and try to help you reduce fees, increase efficiencies and streamline your process through a simple computerized interface. Here's a look at 4 primary benefits and 4 potential problems to help you decide if such a service is for you.

The S&P 500 is now up over 180% since troughing in March 2009 and it has been almost 3 years since the stock market experienced a 10% correction. Historically, market corrections happen approximately every 2 years on average. [As such,] we think that this rally is getting very long in the tooth and we wouldn't be surprised if we have a healthy pullback in the coming weeks or months.

Analysts and investors seem to be very bearish towards silver, but we think that the fundamentals of silver are now becoming extremely attractive in terms of contrarian opportunities. Volatility and risk are not always commensurate, and we believe that silver offers investors fundamentals that can be much stronger than expected and returns that would be magnified by the small size of the silver market (and the bearish positioning by participants). Contrarian investors would be wise to take note.

If you want to make money long-term, you have to bet against the prevailing consensus of most financial experts. I have never seen such an overwhelming bullish consensus as there is today that the economy is going to do great, that gold is a sell, and that the stock market is going to go higher, and if you want to build speculative wealth, you have to bet against that.

Before gold can rally, it has to first turn the trend from down to up. We see no evidence of a change in trend. The bearish spacing is repeated, again, as a reminder that it represents a weak market within its down trend. How anyone can posit a bullish scenario from what the charts show flies in the face of known facts, as depicted in the charts.