Metal, metal on the wall, who is the most precious of them all? For a long time the answer to that question would have been a resounding gold, however experts are tipping it’s less colourful cousin, silver, to sneak up and overtake it in the precious metal race.
As the value of gold continues to soar a leading fund manager feels that its high price will soon detract investors, who will instead begin to appreciate silver’s appeal in industry. Gold has strongly out performed silver for the last three years, but experts are certain that a turn in fortune is due.
As gold continues to be produced the experts feel that this mass production will only have a negative effect “If you mass produce something then it will lose value at some stage. Quantitative easing is undermining the value of Western currencies and assets” said the manager of the Moonraker Commodities fund, Jeremy Charlesworth.
Charlesworth added that “The European Union has decided that the solution to the debt crisis is even more debt and confidence in the recovery package has now evaporated. When people abandon bonds and Western currencies they will look for real assets, which can’t be created at the touch of a button”.
Silver’s presence as an industrial metal is what could ultimately give it the edge over gold, silver can be used to make coins, and is also found in mobile phones and plasma screen technology.
Despite these predictions gold doesn’t look like it’s going to drop straight away, in fact it could still reach fantastic heights before the bubble bursts. Gold is currently trading at a price of £1,225 per ounce, and predictions are it could go as high as £5,000.
“It might only reach $5,000 or more for one day but at that point there will be a real crisis of confidence in Western currencies caused by colossal debt and governments will be forced to bring their deficits under control” Charlesworth said.
The Moonraker firm conducted a survey of US hedge fund managers and they found that 20 out of 22 managers felt that gold was soon going to suffer from inflation as a result of quantitative easing.