Gold is now coming to an end for coming into the grasp of retail Indians during marriage or festive season. As we all know that gold is floating at 17000 levels is very hard bet for buying at these levels. In the coming days we will find gold rising more high and one might find gold around 22000 in the next 5 years even being conservative.
There are number of reasons behind why gold have jumped off to 17000 levels. At the same time more factors will add up which will make gold rise further above to 22000 levels in the next 5 years.
Then what will happen to the common mass of people for whom gold will be like choice of going to visit the planet Mars. What choices we will get instead of buying gold.
In economic there is a word called substitute. It means a product or service that partly satisfies the need of a consumer that another product or service fulfills. In other words it can be defined that a substitute is one in:
- In terms of demand (that is, substitute-in-consumption), one of two goods that replace each other in consumption such that an increase in the price of one good leads to an increase in demand and a rightward shift in the demand curve for the other good.
- If the demand of good 1 increases as the price of good 2 increases, the goods are substitutes-in-consumption.
- In terms of supply (that is, substitute-in-production), one of two goods that replace each other in either producing using the same resources in an either/or fashion.
So when the Gold is running out of hand for doing investments or buying for retail mass of people silver will play the substitute game. Silver is the next metal to catch up the eyes of investment avenues.
Now how silver can be a substitute for gold. In real terms their is no substitute for gold as gold is another form of currency. But in the near term this philosophy will change once gold becomes more expensive and investors will start their quest for a search of a new metal. Still we tried to accentuate and bring forward the invisible facts of being silver as a substitute of gold.
- Silver is less valuable than gold, as seen by the ratio between them.
- The ratio is simply the number of ounces of silver that it takes to buy one ounce of gold.
- It is said that 95% of all gold mined in the history of the world continues to be held by mankind. So not much discoveries to be made in the coming years. In 2006, it was estimated that all the gold ever mined totaled 158,000 tonnes.
- Silver is being held by mankind about 250 million ounces to up to 650 million ounces of silver (These numbers don’t include silver jewelry).Hence the silver has more opportunities of further mining.
- Once the gold mining comes to some stagnate level the price of gold will zoom up like any thing. This will make the yellow metal more expensive where as silver has yet to go a long way to catch up gold mining levels.
- Moreover gold is only being used as an investment avenue from central banks to the one sitting next you doing trading in gold commodity. Where as silver is used in electronics, photographs, and jewelry.
- The largest use is in electronics, and that is growing all the time, perhaps 40% of annual demand is from electronics.
- Silver is the greatest electrical conductor, better even than gold! Silver is used in switches, because it does not spark, and makes a great contact. Silver is used in bearings and some batteries.
- In the ground, gold is more rare than silver. The historic ratio is about 15:1, meaning 15 ounces of silver were worth about one ounce of gold, and this ratio was very close to the ratio at which the two were mined.
- About ten to fifteen times as much silver was mined as gold. Today, less silver is mined.
So silver has some thing more to go ahead fro these levels. It’s the next commodity to rise like gold. But to happen that there is some fuel still left in gold where it will become a rare investment tool for common mass of people.
But among all these the most peculiar thing is this that we investors tend to buy a thing when the price moves up to a new high. They call a new high price a “break out”, because the price “breaks out of a range .So gold will find more buyers and less sellers in the coming days which will increase the price of gold more expensive.
So it’s an opinion to all my investors that start accumulating silver from now. It will take another 10years for silver to become like gold but one who will start investing from now will reap the maximum benefits in the future.
Its goes like this make hay when the sun shines.
Indranil Sen Gupta
Research Analyst
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