It’s a jungle out in the silver markets. Investors are holding on for their lives as the price of metals swings to higher highs and lower lows and junior equities bounce along the bottom. In this interview with The Gold Report, David H. Smith, senior analyst at silver-investor.com’s The Morgan Report, navigates the jungle by advising which explorers, midtiers, stalwarts and royalties to consider buying in tranches on the way down and selling on the inevitable way up.
Question: We often hear how silver is like gold’s little brother. Other than silver having an industrial demand profile, how are these metals different as investments?
Smith: Almost all of the gold that has ever been produced is still out there in some form: in central banks, in private holdings, or in jewelry. A certain amount is used in medical or industrial applications, but not on the scale of silver. When silver is used in radio frequency identification (RFID) chips or electronics, it is gone and must be replaced.
Another increasingly important factor is the emerging popularity of ETFs. Like gold, silver has been real money for people going back thousands of years. It has outlasted every paper system ever developed by humankind. It’s going to outlast the current ones as well, because it preserves purchasing power as paper money loses it.
Read the full interview at resourceinvestor.com
Photo courtesy of providentmetals .com