silver? gold?

My personal opinion is that silver is much better then gold for investment purposes. The only drawback with silver is that, it takes too much space!

Regards
Ballabh Garg

 

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Taking industrial consumption into account, I believe the numbers are somewhat balanced, and that silver remains undervalued relative to gold. Here is the USGS Silver Statistics 1900-2004 page; prior to 1939 apparent consumption is approximately 1/9 of total world production. After 1938, the apparent consumption jumps to approximately 1/3 of total world production. Here is the USGS Gold Statistics 1900-2004 page; the apparent consumption for years 1900-2004 is approximately 1/9 of total world production.

While both gold and silver consumed in industrial applications can be recycled, I don't believe that very much silver is actually recycled. I would imagine more gold is recycled than silver, although I don't have any hard stats.

Only my $0.02,
09S

 

That also makes it harder to steal. Too heavy.

 

I don't dispute that silver gets consumed much more than gold in today's applications; in fact, I am very optimistic for silver for the long term (hence my handle!) and only have two gold coins as opposed to many more silver in my collection. I just think that it's not useful to await a reversion to the historic 1:12 or 1:16 ratios which, although they have time on their side, don't account for either the large amounts discovered in the new world or as you point out the current industrial uses of either metal.

 

Silver

Key points as to why I suggest that people invest in silver.

The gold to silver ratio favors silver. At the current prices the ratio for every one ounce of gold you buy, you could have 42.24 ounces of silver. On a good day for the market gold may increase by 10.00 an ounce, you would make 10.00. if silver went up a quarter, you would make 10.56. 56 cents may not sound like a lot but, If you had 10k dollars worth of silver you stand to make much more.

As of right now gold is up 4.00 and silver is up .17. with your 42.24 ounces of silver you just made 8.20, Opposed to only 4.

You can sell as much or as little as you want of silver. With gold, a lot of money is tied up into one coin. I see this frequently people that only need a couple hundred dollars are forced to sell the entire ounce. Silver is easier to sell for the amount that you need.

Here are the draw backs with Silver

If you are investing major money into silver you better have an entire room in which to store it. Silver is heavy, this posses problems to the elderly and the spouses that most of you will leave your silver to.

Storage in a bank vault is not particle.

You can fit 13,340 worth of gold into one coin roll, which you could carry in your pocket. It would take almost 1000 ounces of silver to equal that amount (62.5 pounds) Good luck totting that around.

 

gold or silver

in recent years. gold is much better as far as bullion is concerned. but the collector's items. silver is faster.

 

I don't think this is correct regarding bullion. Gold bullion has not appreciated faster than silver bullion in the past several years. I guess someone could pick a date at some point in the past that would show gold in a favorable light, but it has been the exception and not the rule.

I agree with AgCollector that the gold/silver ratio is one of those frequently quoted analytical tools that probably belongs in the garbage heap. Silver is being consumed in non-recoverable ways faster than it is being mined. Gold is being mined faster than it is being consumed in non-recoverable ways. That's the main case for silver.

 

A couple months ago I posted that a nurse at work has an investor brother. He advised to jump on Palladium. For reasons I still don't understand, the thread was closed. Anyway at the time palladium was at $315 an ounce, spiking to $318 but dropping back to $315. Now this metal is pretty stable staying around $340. I didn't jump in. My speculation is in silver coins.

 

Howdy folks,

Great discussion, and I'd like to add a few comments and hopefully, they won't get labeled as off topic.

I like silver, marginally better than gold as a bullion investment. In the past, I liked it MUCH better, but today the demand for gold is up for various reasons and that means you can't simply ignore gold. I also think that platinum and palladium (the P&P sisters) have room to grown.

The historical ratio has been mentioned, and I recall it being more in the 1 to 15-20 range. Right now it's 1 to 47-48 and early last year was 1 to 65-70.

During the Hunt Bros bull market in the late 70's, gold peaked at ~850 while silver peaked at ~50. [read: 1 to 17]. If you had played gold, you would have doubled your money. If you had played silver it would have grown tenfold. Granted, the Bros were attempting to corner silver, but the numbers are still impressive.

Silver is used industrially still and while gold is to an extent, the only substitutes in many applications are platinum (or palladium) or silver. Industry accordingly, defaults to silver. Note that the primary substitute for platinum is palladium so they have a tendency to run in tandem when in equilibrium.

Right now the demand for gold is enormous and growing. A couple of years ago, they finally made it legal for chinese citizens to own gold. With their growing economic middle class, some are buying 'bling' while their the gov't in increasing their gold reserve. In India, it's a cultural thing as gold jewelry (bling) is the female version of social security. Indeed, it's also requisite as dowry for young ladies. With their economic expansion, folks are buying. Add on to this demand the fact that some of our trading partners are starting to increase their gold reserves in the central banks --- and you end up with greater and growing demand for gold.

Right now I'm riding the precious metals with either bullion or mutual funds or stocks about 80/10/5/5 in silver/gold/platinum/palladium. I'm also playing the base metals like copper, nickel and iron to a much lesser extent with stocks.

gold-eagle and kitco are two KEY websites if you're going to follow this stuff,

peace,

rono

 

Just to add a bit of lore there was another nurse at work who is a native of Kenya. She was telling me about how she went with her parents to the open market. I think she said somewhere near the east coast of Africa. She described the gold that could be purchased very reasonably. Big ingots, some type of large gold rope, chains, and long round bars of South African gold. The majority of the dealers are Arabs.
Man I went nuts hearing about it. And yes, the females over there own much gold.
I went out a couple days later and bought a Krugerrand!

 

I think they are both great investments, but for me I personally like gold better just make sure you don't overspend.