Best precious metal to invest in?

What precious metal do you guys feel is best to invest in? Gold, silver, platinum, or palladium?

 

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I'd say gold and then silver. If you can't afford gold, go with silver bars or bullion. Those two will likely always be easier to resell over the other two. I don't know many who invest in palladium and as for platinum, it's great for jewelry but for investing, meh. That's must my opinion though.

 

silver.

 

Personally I think the boat has sailed on gold and platinum. Silver is the last affordable frontier in metal followed by copper and nickel as last ditch choices. Although the "experts" say by end of year (unless gov't does something drastic to turn things around) $2,000 ask on gold and $50-60 ask price on silver. Mostly due to lack of ground reserves to meet the demand seen in the past two years. So it looks like if the demand stays high, the available gold and silver in the market will soon becoming finite. So barring the U.S. or other central bank from dumping gold and silver into the market place (NOT likely as 85% of the cental banks are stock piling gold and silver right now) or another vein being found in the sea or Alaska or a mountain somewhere what is out there is going to have to do. One thing that worries me with palladium and rhodium they are mostly used in manufacturing and jewelry so unless something is done to help businesses we may not have such a great need for those metals. So bang for your buck is silver it's still cheap enough to get your hands on A LOT of it. Think of it like this would you rather have a ton or bricks (gold) or ton of feathers (silver)? because it will take more feathers to equal a ton.

 

Not sure which is going to move the most between Gold and Silver, so I stack both of them. I try to keep the value as close to equal as I can, I think both of these metals have the most potential for gains compared to the other two. I do have some Platinum, but not expecting much out of it anytime remotely soon.

 

I would (and am) take silver all day long compared to gold. It is more affordable and at a great gold/silver rate right now. In my opinion, I would not be surprised to see silver at $50+ per ounce this year. Gold will probably go up too, but not nearly at that rate... That being said, buy what you like, then you won't have to worry if the price doesn't do what you expect it to....

 

I don't think this is true. I follow mining shares very closely ( not just the price, but reading the SEC and the Canadian NI 43-101 reports) and there is still more gold in the ground than people want to buy. The mining companies are not unlike the oil producers, neither want to burn through their reserves if it drives the prices down. Right now there is not enough demand anywhere to drive the PM upwards, the PM prices are reflecting the strength of the USD, which has been strong and the EURO, which if Greece and Portugal/Spain stay solvent, may drive the USD down some and PM and other USD denominated commodities up. If Greece takes the euros and defaults anyway, the euro will slam. The main driving force for the gold and silver producers is not what they see as the price alone, but the price - the cost of producing it, in other words the net cost per ounce. Even small mining companies have many million of ounces in reserve that is dependent on the net cost as far as being produced. Energy costs is probably the largest cost factor for most of the miners in the US and Canada, and as the USD goes up, energy costs go up and the POG goes down, so why produce. Other places, security costs may be as high. The bullion sellers, would love that everyone thinks the earth is running out of PM, but there is a very very long way to go. IMO.

 

Silver then Gold.

 

I'm surprised a lot of you are saying gold. It can drop/rise massive amounts everyday. It just doesn't seem like a good long term investment.

 

Well you just dont buy 1 oz of silver, chances are a serious invester purchases 50+ oz's and if silver drops you multiply that by 50 and theres your gold loss.

 

Not really. Silver is demonstrably more volatile than gold. Look at the price history.

If I had to buy a metal at these prices, I would buy platinum or palladium.

 

Gold is more of a sure thing. Silver has more upside.

 

Well, given that a ton of gold is about fifty million dollars and a ton of silver is about one million dollars, I'd pretty much go with the gold, even though it doesn't make such an impressive pile. But I'd happily accept either as a gift.

 

I think all precious metals are a very good investment because the world is printing fiat currancies like mad men. But Platinum is the precious metal with the most upside potential. Historically Platinum trades higher than gold. These days Platinum is selling for about $75/oz less than gold. Plus Platinum is both a precious metal and an industrial metal. JMHO

 

When the apocalypse occurs, the most precious items you can own is:

A) A gun
B) Bullets for your gun
C) A can opener for all the canned goods left behind.
D) Stockpile of Twinkies (they never go bad since they're made of synthetic food)

PM's are not a good investment, knowledge of growing your own food and owning a gun is. :yes:

 

Silver has the best supply and demand fundamentals. Mining supply does not meet total demand (investment plus industrial demand, which are both growing). There is only about a half a year's worth of mining supply available on the open market today, the lowest surplus in 7 centuries, and once that is gone the price will explode to wrestle it out of the strong hands who have been acquiring it in anticipation of that. Silver has the highest margin requirements on the paper markets of any commodity in the world, which means that it is actually the least speculative commodity because the only people in that market are people who have the actual money. Since the paper market trades over 1 billion oz per day of silver that does not actually exist, and that is more than is mined in a whole year, then the supply and demand dynamics we are currently amidst are not reflective of the coming supply shortage. The all time high of silver was back in the 1400's at over $800/oz in 1992 US dollars (even more in today's dollars which are much more devalued than in 1992). The current gold to silver ratio is 50 to 1, yet silver is only 7 times more abundant in the Earth's crust today according to mining numbers. It used to be 17 times more abundant, but the supply underground is actually depleting because of epithermal deposition, a phenomenon that causes silver to exist primarily in rich veins near the surface of the crust due to its melting point. So silver is mined primarily as a byproduct, deeper in the ground, and more dangerous and expensive to get at for less return. Available silver above ground is actually more than 10 times more rare than gold, because silver gets used up and often discarded due its more than 10,000 industrial uses, second only to oil. Silver is the most refelctive metal, the best heat conductor of any metal, and the best semiconductor of electricity. It cannot be substituted without the drawback of not only being more expensive, but also a loss of quality since nothing is comparable to it in these regards.

 

A short article in the business news today, and also in Yahoo finance. said that India expects their 2012 gold imports to decline for the first time in 3 year by 7.1 % . Due to rising gold prices coupled with the weakness of the Rupee in pricing the USD denominated gold, it might drop India below China as the #1 consumer. Notice it doesn't say China will surge above India, it is India possibly dropping below China. China has said their amount.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-surpass-india-top-gold-111805638.html

 

Longterm = Platinum and Silver. This is the way I look at it. What is in your computer? Silver. What is in your T.V.? Silver. How about solar panels? Silver. Medical Equiptment? Silver Oh Jewelry too? Ok now let's talk about gold. What is gold used for? Weddings in India.

 

I see a rise in the Indian population density. Stock up!

Edit: Gold is also used quite widely in the ghetto

 

When in human history, have people with gold and silver, gone hungry?