Silver: Safe Haven Investment of Choice for 2013?

Despite being relegated as the “poorer cousin of gold”, is silver now poised to become one the safe haven investments of choice for the year 2013?

By: Ringo Bones

As one of the top four precious metals – along with gold, palladium and platinum - that are traded on a per troy ounce that appear on the world market’s commodities tick , silver is on average 55 times cheaper than gold. And yet silver has been steadily rising in value – along with gold – since we have been hit by the global credit crunch back in 2008.

Even though this is a rare period in history where gold is now “slightly” more expensive than platinum despite gold being 1,000-times more plentiful than platinum on the Earth’s crust, platinum rose in value by 10% back in 2012. And not to be left behind, silver managed to rise in value by as much as 8% back in 2012 too, so does this mean that silver is now poised to be the safe haven investment of choice for 2013 for those wanting to have a more diversified safe haven investment portfolio?

Back in January 8, 2013, Gregor Gregersen, chief executive of Silver Bullion in Hong Kong says that during the first week of 2013, there has been a sharp increase of purchases of silver bullion and numismatic quality silver coins from his silver retail outfit and if trends continue, silver’s value could rise by as much as 500% during the next three years. And silver is still currently used to back the value of paper currencies in the banking systems of both the United States and The People’s Republic of China.

Despite the film-based sliver nitrate and silver halide based chemicals used in old-school “analog” film based photography being replaced by digital photography almost overnight that virtually relegated film-based photography to the technological dustbin of history, silver is still used for ultra-low electrical resistance traces on printed circuit boards and electrical connectors of today’s latest digital cameras. Looks like silver could well become the next safe haven investment of choice for those willing to diversify their own safe haven investment portfolio.