Since the 2011 tops, precious metals investors have had their patience severely tested. Six years later, silver is down 66% from the $50 peak and gold 35% off the $1,920 peak. We mustn’t forget off course that these metals started this century at $280 and $5 respectively. But that is no consolation for the investors who got in near the highs. The best time to buy an asset is when it is unloved and undervalued like gold and silver were in the early 2000s. What few investors realise is that the current levels of gold and silver, when real inflation is taken into account, are very similar to where the metals were in 2000-2. Thus gold at $1,265 and silver at $17 is an absolute bargain and unlikely to remain at these levels for long.
Why are asset markets booming and gold static?
As the precious metals have corrected for six years, many markets have boomed. Money printing and credit creation can do wonders to asset markets. Since 2009, stocks in the US for example have trebled and many other asset classes such as property have appreciated substantially. Global debt since 2006 is up by 75% or $100 trillion and short term and long term rates in the Western world re down from 5-6% to anywhere from negative to around 2%. This has fuelled stocks and property but so far had limited effect on gold and silver.
It was the sub-prime mortgage market that started the 2006-9 crisis. Since then, there are property bubbles in many parts of the world. Canada, Australia, UK, Scandinavia, Hong Kong and China all have property markets which are likely to crash in the next few years together with the US one which is still a bubble.
This post was published at GoldSwitzerland on May 26, 2017.
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