Most of the talk these days centers on Gold and Gold Investing. Some don’t see silver as a potentially money making investment, instead see it as metal used for jewelry and dinnerware.. However, history shows that silver has been a medium for storage of wealth for thousands of years and valued one civilization to the next. The Greeks to the Spaniards have employed it to mint coins. In fact, silver coins were in wide circulation until 1965 and silver certificates were also exchangeable into the precious metal.
Silver has qualities which also make it a sought after industrial metal. Is is malleable, ductile and has the best electrical conductivity of all metals. It uses have ranged from electronics to photography and many other uses as well.Up to the 1960’s this was the main driver of its price.
Now, however silver has become a prime metal traded in the financial markets.. The expansion of the futures and ETF markets have played a major role in this. This has increased the participation of investors and speculators in silver and its price movement.. Lately there have been widely circulated news stories relating to the price manipulation of the price of silver. This only goes to show the importance of the metal and that in a free market the price would be much higher than it actually is.
Since 2003 the trend for silver has been up as result of inadequate supplies and increased investor demand.. During this period mine output, supplies and new finds have either been stagnant or declining. Demand SLV the ETF for Silver has been rising thereby out pacing supplies of available shares, forcing the custodian to issue new shares and in turn buy more physical silver.
The financial and economic uncertainty which we are witnessing has also increased demand for capital appreciation and wealth protection.. The result has been an increase in price and demand. Current news events once again reflect growing economic uncertainty which should turn into continued strength in demand and price for silver.
Conditions such as scrap silver becoming valuable again are a indication of the current silver market situation.. Silver appears to be regaining its luster as a metals for wealth protection. Investor will demand more and increase the competition for the metal with industrial sector. The final result seems fairly obvious since the metal supply is in limited supply.
Both both capital appreciation and wealth protection, investing in gold and silver appear to be good choices. Analyzing the precious metals from a technical and fundamental basis disclose that now is a good time to be invested in these precious metals.