Dividen Tabung Haji 2010= 5.5%

Source:http://www.bharian.com.my/bharian/articles/BonusTabungHaji5_5peratus/Article
2011/01/28
KUALA LUMPUR: Lembaga Tabung Haji Malaysia hari ini mengumumkan pembayaran bonus 5.5 peratus bagi 2010 berjumlah RM1.33 bilion.

Pengerusinya, Tan Sri Abi Musa Asa'ari Mohamed Nor, berkata peningkatan pembayaran bonus 24 peratus itu adalah berikutan prestasi kewangan yang lebih baik Tabung Haji pada tahun lalu.
"Kadar bonus pendeposit Tabung Haji adalah kompetitif memandangkan profil pelaburan Tabung Haji adalah terhad kepada pelaburan berlandaskan Syariah
sahaja.

"Namun begitu, Tabung Haji masih berkemampuan memberikan tambahan 0.5
peratus daripada kadar bonus 2009 sebanyak 5.0 peratus," katanya semasa
mengumumkan bonus pendeposit Tabung Haji 2010.


Beliau berkata, Tabung Haji masih menawarkan pulangan yang lebih baik jika dibandingkan dengan kadar pulangan daripada akaun tetap perbankan Islam.

Sumber-sumber utama pendapatan Tabung Haji bagi 2010 adalah daripada
pelaburan ekuiti, yang telah menyumbang sebanyak 65 peratus, di mana 19 peratus
adalah pendapatan dividen dan 46 peratus adalah keuntungan urusniaga saham.

Penyumbang kedua terbesar adalah dari pelaburan sekuriti hutang terutamanya
bon Islam, yang telah menyumbang sebanyak 10 peratus.

Abi Musa berkata, keuntungan selepas zakat Tabung Haji bagi tahun 2010 juga
telah menunjukkan kadar pertumbuhan yang baik dengan perkembangan 34 peratus
berbanding 2009.

"Tabung Haji memperuntukkan pembayaran zakat perniagaan RM41 juta bagi 2010
berbanding dengan pembayaran zakat berjumlah RM39 juta pada 2009," katanya.

Beliau berkata, baki dari keuntungan 2010 selepas pembayaran bonus pendeposit, iaitu sebanyak RM164 juta akan dimasukkan ke dalam rizab Tabung Haji.

Dengan sejumlah RM153 juta yang telah dibawa ke hadapan pada tahun 2010,
jumlah rizab terkumpul Tabung Haji bagi tahun tersebut adalah sebanyak RM317
juta.

"Dalam keadaan ekonomi yang mula menunjukkan kesan-kesan pemulihan,
pengukuhan rizab perlu diberi keutamaan bagi mengelak faktor ketidaktentuan
luaran yang sentiasa akan mendatangkan kesan kepada institusi pelaburan seperti
Tabung Haji," kata Abi Musa.
Sementara itu, mengulas mengenai pembayaran bonus pendeposit Tabung Haji,
Pengarah Urusan Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd Datuk Seri Zukri Samat berkata ia
membuktikan bahawa Tabung Haji merupakan salah sebuah syarikat pelaburan
berkaitan kerajaan (GLIC) yang berjaya merangka formula pelaburan yang berkesan.

"Walau pun dalam keadaan ekonomi yang masih mencabar, Tabung Haji berjaya
mencatat pendapatan melebihi RM2 bilion bagi tahun kewangan 2010.

"Pembayaran bonus yang kompetitif setiap tahun oleh Tabung Haji menjadikannya satu organisasi yang berdaya saing," katanya. - BERNAMA

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Silver IS The New Gold - Ryan Jordan - Financial Sense

Source: http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/ryan-jordan-silver-is-the-new-gold

A Popular Delusion Called Cheap, Industrial Silver

From the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, contrarian investors began murmuring about getting into gold and short term Treasuries. It was almost a mantra: gold and Treasuries… gold and Treasuries. Something missing? There certainly was from the perspective of the silver bugs. But the conventional wisdom, among goldbugs at least, was that silver was a mere “industrial metal” that would easily drop in a weak economy. And those who referred to silver as an “industrial metal” seemed to be backed up by the COMEX exchange in 2008, where the price of silver was basically cut in half, from twenty dollars to below ten. This takedown may have seemed justified at the time because the super rich were not loading up on bulky thousand ounce bars of silver, but smaller, more portable, easily stored amounts of gold. Silver was left out, ignored, shunned, and that seemed to be just the way the market worked.

I remember thinking in the fall of 2008 that part of this push into gold and Treasuries really was motivated by memories of what people did between 1929 and 1932. You see, the last time we had a Depression “gold and Treasuries” was the common sense move to protect assets. Silver in 1930? Silver was practically a base metal, it was in the coinage you used to buy a hot dog. Remember that at the depths of the Depression the mine supply of silver was nearly 5 TIMES the domestic US demand for both industry and coinage!! Things were so bad for silver that western Senators demanded that the U.S. prop up the silver price after it dropped to under 50 cents an ounce! Needless to say, few Americans in the last Depression thought of silver as the go-to monetary metal to protect wealth against a shattered banking system.

Fast forward 45 years and the view of silver as an abundant, cheap industrial metal would be further reinforced in the aftermath of Silver Thursday in 1980. This is because the price spike in the mid to late 1970s was not coming from industrial demand- that peaked about six years earlier, in 1974. Rather the price surge was coming from the Hunt Brothers’ Corner on the COMEX: in other words, investment demand. All that was needed was for the COMEX to change the rules on the Hunts- a kind of capital control against the longs- and the price collapsed. As the price collapsed over 60% in the 1980s (with the help of government dishoarding), and as mine supply increased, once again the perception continued that silver was some sort of easily extractable, base metal. Gold was the money of the bankers- “he who has the gold makes the rules” was the tried and true saying. Silver? A distant second as far as those trying to insure their assets were concerned.

Suffice to say, most people in the investment world have been conditioned to believe that a silver shortage is impossible, in addition to being fixated on gold as the only insurance you need for your portfolio. This is the power of recent history, of the language that is used to describe silver (its industrial), and a view that is still encouraged by some gold dealers. While I haven’t done a poll, I would bet many in the gold industry assume that a genuine silver shortage for industrial purposes is highly unlikely. This perception is largely reinforced by the major world market maker in the white metal, the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
COMEX and thin ice on the Hudson

In my mind, the COMEX is simply a warehouse and storage center for silver. A large warehouse, yes, but a warehouse that is, frankly, living off of its former glory: once the exchange legitimately had access to hundreds of millions silver ounces that could be sold, but now it likely has less than 50 million ounces for sale (this data is almost a year old), or about 1.5 billion dollars. And given the lack of government stockpiles, and how little new mine supply goes into bullion, this 50 million ounces is in many ways irreplaceable. (I will address jewelry and silverware stockpiles below). To further show how small this 50 million silver ounces number is, the COMEX has less silver for sale than is stored by a well-known gold and silver closed-end fund, the Central Fund of Canada (the COMEX also has much less silver than the SLV ETF, but I realize many question what this ETF actually has under its direct control.) So why does the COMEX have such sway in the silver market? Because the COMEX enables big players to buy on paper, with big leverage- I guess what they call “liquidity” in the world of finance. On any given day the COMEX trades millions and millions of these paper “ounces” of silver. The vast majority of these contracts are not settled in physical silver- it is impossible to do so! But the volume of money passing through and over this silver warehouse is what makes the COMEX the alpha dog, the leader of the pack in terms of setting the world price in silver.

But in this era of uncertainty regarding our financial system, the paper leveraged nature of the COMEX leads many to question its viability as the world market maker in silver. Because at the end of the day, the paper game played on the COMEX demonstrates how floating exchange rates allow for the irresponsible mispricing of important strategic and industrial assets like silver (but the list could be included to other commodities.) Worse, there is a motive for banks in league with the Federal Reserve to use as many of their Federal Reserve Notes to play the short side of the paper game, even though these banks know full well they could not deliver on what they are selling short. But banks likely play this game to maintain the image that the fiat dollar is doing just fine: large price moves higher in gold and silver are a warning light regarding the end of the fiat dollar. However, the lower the silver price is kept by large banks and their naked short positions, the more silver is consumed in spite of a tightening physical market. The silver paper market, in other words, is completely and totally disconnected from the realities of supply and demand on the ground.

The casino-like quality of this paper market is related to the fallacy that you can just print more and more money and not have incredible shortages erupt in goods that cannot be printed. We are already seeing shortages for real things in places like Tunisia- we all have to wonder how long before these kinds of shortages come to the western world. But the FED is convinced that it can solve the employment problem with cheap money, and will continue to pretend the looming inflation problem does not exist. And the FED is not only showing disregard for poor people whose budgets are easily consumed by food increases. The callous attitude of the Federal Reserve System also extends toward the holders of capital- epitomized with the zero percent interest rate policy. This attitude is an expression of the fallacy that the holders of capital will always be relied upon to invest capital into risk taking ventures such as mines or other productive enterprises. This is a very dangerous, stupid assumption. What if those holders of capital feel abused by the banking elite and government authorities and refuse to take the risks necessary to provide the resources needed for the American economic model of growth at all costs? And what if those holders of capital decide to put their money into something unprintable- like silver? So, in my mind, the COMEX is one more, very important symbol of an unsustainable economic and monetary model. The implications of the COMEX running out of silver, or trying to institute capital controls when it fears a run on silver, could not be more bullish for the holders of the white metal.

For now, though, the COMEX price is generally honored by dealers. Yes, there are premiums for small amounts of silver, but there are not yet significant premiums for larger bars of silver. There are hundreds of thousands of major bullion dealers who aren’t big enough to rock the boat of COMEX pricing- at least not yet. But what happens if the silver inventory at the COMEX keeps dropping- irreplaceable inventory as far as I’m concerned- and all the leveraged paper players try to convert their paper into silver. If there are eighty more paper contracts settled in paper for every one settled in bullion, you get the idea what will happen when the other 79 try to rush into a silver market where the silver does not exist. In other words, the COMEX is susceptible to a bank run.

This is an important point: the silver market does not need any new “investors” for the price to go higher- it simply requires people holding paper silver (which is plentiful) to try to convert it into physical (which is scarce).

Although the physical scramble could occur by the populace who do not deal with the COMEX, at this point it is much more likely to be initiated at an institution such as the COMEX. When capital controls are put into place at the exchange to end the delivery of silver bullion to investors, there will be hundreds of billions of dollars trying to land on a pile of silver outside the exchange in the single billions of dollars. At some point, some of the estimated 20 billion ounces of jewelry and silverware may come into the market, but likely only at much higher prices. Think about it- how much does women’s silver jewelry cost when compared to its scrap value? In other words, silver prices will have to launch significantly higher before this jewelry comes out of hiding. And then, I predict, the Silver Users Association will make sure that it gets first dibs on what is being scrapped, leaving investors in the cold. Quite possibly, silver in coin and bullion will never be as plentiful as gold coin and bullion, even though some people still claim that there is some large overhang of silver which could make the amount of silver bullion equal to that of gold.
The trend is your friend

As a final point of fact, the above ground stockpile of silver- around 22 to 25 billion ounces and mostly jewelry and silverware at this point- has not changed much over the last half century. (Mind you, at the moment less than 1 billion are silver coins or bullion.) However, the above ground stockpile of gold has grown substantially from under 1 billion to nearly 7 billion ounces over the same time frame. Beside the fact that the above ground ratio of all silver to gold is less than 4 to 1 (and not 50: 1 as currently expressed in the price), the trend in physical gold and silver is clearly toward parity, or at least something close to it. And yet here we are with silver having recently “corrected” in price to a mere $27.50 an ounce, while gold is $1350. Silver- which could one day get awfully close to the price of gold- remains very much a screaming buy.

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When Will Silver Prices Explode?-Jason Hommel-SilverSeek

Posted 30 August, 2010
(ANYTIME!)
Silver Stock Report

Many analysts and investors try to guess when silver prices will explode. They make these guesses based on the charts, or even by the fundamentals like I do. I pointed out the fundamental supply and demand numbers in my last article, "1% of 1%".

The Tiny Silver Market attracts 1% of 1%, or $1 out of every $10,000 in the US Banking system, each year.

By the time 1% of paper money tries to buy silver in one year, there will be 100 times as much investor buying of silver as today, which will be about $180 billion trying to buy only 750 million ounces of annual world production, which implies a silver price of about $240/oz., or perhaps higher.

1% of 1% August 23rd, 2010 (The Silver Market is tiny, tiny, tiny!)

That article led Al Korelin and Steve Carr to call me up for a 13-minute radio interview on the Korelin Economics Report. See here:

http://kereport.com/weekendshow/weekendbt-aug2810-seg1.html

Please listen to that radio segment; it's very powerful information.

The silver fundamentals are so great, and the silver market is so small, that at any time, the silver price can double, up from about $18-19/oz. now, to about $40/oz.

How can silver prices double at any time?

Because there are over 1000 individual billionaires in the world, and each one of them could cause silver prices to double overnight by attempting to exchange over valued assets for undervalued silver. How can any analyst predict when any one of 1000 people may decide to act? And it is impossible, IMPOSSIBLE, to tell in advance, when a single buyer will try to buy silver in such quantities and urgency that it would move up the price by up to 100% over a few days. Unless you know such a billionaire personally, and unless he or she tells you, in advance, of his trading moves, which wealthy people don't usually do.

For example: The current silver market is dominated by industrial demand, with very little investor demand, for a total of about $10 billion of new silver per year. Most of industrial demand is price inflexible, since the amount of silver used is a very little cost compared to the final item. We might assume that some, but not all, of current demand might wait or delay purchases due to higher prices, but also, higher silver prices might attract additional investor demand, as investors these days are more attracted to rising price trends than they are to excellent fundamental reasons to buy. Also, higher prices may cause panic stockpiling by other industrial users who might wish to lock in lower prices, or secure enough supply in a tight market. Therefore, an additional $1 billion of new buying, over the course of a year, could cause the silver price to move up by much more than 10%. But if a billion dollars tried to buy silver within a month's time, then that impact, if looked at as if it were to be annualized, that would look like another $12 billion was trying to enter the market, and thus, the silver price might move up by more than 100% in a month!

Here's another way to look at what $1 billion of silver buying within a month would do to silver. Currently, we have about $1.9 billion per year of investment demand buying 100 million oz. of silver, which works out to $158 million in a month. $1 billion buying silver within a month would be 6.3 times more than the current silver investment demand.

Therefore, it is impossible to know exactly when silver prices will explode. And there's really no need, is there? All we really need to know, is that silver prices are highly explosive, which is great if you own silver!

Well, I suppose there is another way to tell if, or when, silver prices will explode. If you gave me the personal email addresses of all 1000 billionaires in the world, and if I sent them all my article from August 23rd, you could easily bet that the silver price would be likely to double within a week. But it's not likely that I'll get that email list.

Oddly, the silver price has gained about $1/oz. since my last article on the 23rd, which is when this latest rally began.

1% of 1% August 23rd, 2010

http://tinyurl.com/252xx5o

Bloomberg wrote: " Silver has outperformed the yellow metal since Aug. 23, gaining 6 percent compared with gold's 1.4 percent gain, as investors bought the white metal because of its relative cheapness to gold."

Really wealthy people are kind of funny. For them, it's often about status, or power, not wealth anymore. Well then, they should know that if they are in the top 1000 of wealthy families, they have an opportunity to enter the top 100, if only they buy silver. And if they are in the top 100, then they can likely enter the top 10, if only they buy silver. And if they are in the top ten, well, they might just be able to buy a few nations, if only they buy silver, before other billionaires do.

They should know that buying silver first is not like a race, it IS a race!

But there are many thousands of funds, retirement funds, each managing billions, and any one of them could decide to buy silver in an attempt to gain increased performance for their portfolios, too!.

The point is that reaching people, and teaching people the fundamentals of silver is potentially a very productive thing for silver prices.

In case this email is actually forwarded to any of the world's billionaires, I suggest that they read my prior article specifically for them:

How to Get Into Silver, for Billionaires February 27, 2008

=====

So, how else can you reach people? The Silver Circle Movie!

Please Support the Silver Circle Movie! They need to raise, within the next week, $4000 to cast actors.

Here's their online pitch, it's very funny:

Silver Circle - Animated Dystopian Film Needs Funding for Talent
http://kck.st/cgDktF

=====

I have a few ironic insights about people and wisdom.

To be wise, you have to have a very long attention span.

To market wisdom, you have to express it as if people have very short attention spans. Headlines, urls, titles, names and signs must catch a person's attention in less than 1 second. And you have to have a 5 second pitch, a 10 second pitch, and a 20 sec., 1 min pitch, 5 min pitch, 10 min. speech, 30 min speech, 1 hour speech, etc. Even wise people will ignore many things, so you have to work hard to catch people's attention quickly!

To want to teach wisdom, you have to be unselfish; but you have to put it forth in such a way that wisdom is attractive to people who are totally selfish. Even wise people recognize that people who act in their self interest create a rational free market economy.

To become wise, you have to constantly think, discern, and learn. But most people rarely think deeply, they mostly just remember slogans. Even college kids earn A's merely by regurgitating the definitions of the theories of the day; no real thinking is required. Ok, then, here it is:

SILVER PRICES WILL EXPLODE!

SILVER PRICES WILL GO UP!

SILVER INVESTORS WILL MAKE FORTUNES!

SILVER IS LIKELY TO INCREASE BY A FACTOR OF 100 TIMES GREATER!

SILVER PRICES CAN GO UP BY 10,000%!

The Federal Reserve seems to understand these rules, and makes expert use of them.

The Fed is a master marketer. They own the media, or their partners do, and they give a constant bombardment of headlines favorable to the dollar and the Fed.

The Fed appeals to people's greed, they even actively bribe judges to win court cases.

Payoffs for Judges, Prosecutors Is Legal by Statute
http://americanfreepress.net/html/payoffs_for_judges_232.html

When judges are bribed, it becomes impossible for them to present rational arguments for their decisions. That happened to me, I saw it in action in 2003-2004. http://bibleprophesy.org/squaw.htm

The Federal Reserve markets through propaganda and slogans; no real analysis is ever presented for a strong dollar. For over ten years, the Fed and their media whores have warned of the risks of deflation--and yet, all the while, M3 has increased from $5 trillion to $15 trillion, and silver has increased from $5 to over $15/oz., which is 200% inflation over a decade, but all we hear of is the constant danger of deflation.

The Fed LIES!

Meanwhile, the banks who were bailed out last year are still keeping a huge reserve of cash on deposit with the Fed, so it's not counted in M3 stats, that are no longer being published by the Fed, so there is a double secret plan to hide the inflation, and furthermore, the Federal Budget gap, or deficit, is $1.5 trillion, which must be printed, which is 10% annual inflation right there!

The Fed relies on the fact that people don't actively think nor remember the Fed's deceptive cry about deflation, nor do people remember the facts of the actual horrendous inflation over the last decade, or even in the last year.

So just remember one thing.

Silver prices can double overnight, at anytime, and it's totally impossible to predict when it will happen. And yet, at some unexpected day out of the blue, silver prices will likely double, and nobody will understand why, except me, and you.

Because we know that the silver market is just way too small, and prices just way too low.
=====

I strongly advise you to take possession of real gold and silver, at anywhere near today's price, while you still can. The fundamentals indicate rising prices for decades to come.

Source: http://news.silverseek.com/GoldIsMoney/1283182340.php

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In India, silver tops the charts - Shivom Seth - Mineweb

Though the price of silver has scaled to dizzying heights, investment demand in India is at the helm of the price fever. As the country celebrates the Ganesh festival, silver ornaments and coins fly off the rack.

Author: Shivom Seth

Posted: Monday , 13 Sep 2010

MUMBAI - -

It could not have come at a better time. Silver prices jumped by 0.30% in the futures market in Mumbai on September 13, as speculators enlarged their positions given the pick up in demand in the spot market. Silver prices have been steadily gaining over the past week on fresh demand from jewellery and gift manufacturers.

Over the past five weeks, the metal has outpaced gold, logging in a gain of around 14%. According to analysts, the metal's spurt above $20 is the first ever since early 2008.

The white metal continued its north-bound journey for the seventh straight trading day, following sustained industrial demand. The ensuing Ganesh festival has also helped buoy sales,'' said Lalubhai Zavereemal Toda, a Mumbai-based silver trader and diamond exporter.

Though the metal is generally used in the photo and electronic industries and also in jewellery making, it has a specific significance in India during festival times. The second-half of the year is when the festive season starts to roll, and many Indians buy gold and silver coins, utensils and gift items to usher in the festivities. Though the price rise in the case of gold has been phenomenal during the last couple of months, most traders insist that it has not dampened sales. ``Demand for gold and silver coins and ornaments perks in the second-half of the year,'' said Shailesh Siddique, an analyst with ABN AMRO, a banking institution. ``The surge in the price of precious metals including gold and silver reflects the buoyancy of the Indian economy. Gross domestic product (GDP) for the current fiscal is expected to touch 9%,'' he added.

He went on to say that a lot of interest has been seen in silver in recent days after gold started rising; ``Silver was cheaper. Its price has gone up faster. The gold to silver price ratio is currently pegged at 65.06; it was 67 just two months ago. Prices in the international market are also moving up on safe-haven buying and weak macro economic data.''

Agency newswires reported that silver has outperformed the yellow metal since August 23, gaining 6% as compared with gold's 1.4% gain, as investors bought the white metal due to its relative cheapness.

In Mumbai, demand for silver has improved substantially as jewellers and manufacturers of gift articles have turned active buyers to meet the requirement for the on-going Ganesh festival, when India's favourite elephant-headed God graces most Indian homes for around 10 days. This year, the remover of obstacles, as the benign deity is called, will stay an additional two-days.

"I am surprised at the latent demand for silver and gold, both in the form of jewellery and as an investment,'' said Ashoke Moitra, an investment banker. ``There is enormous liquidity despite inflation, which is fuelling demand for cars and jewellery. This trend will continue all through the year and with the Indian marriage season coming up as well, we anticipate demand for the precious metals to remain robust throughout 2010,'' he added.

The wedding season in India, the world's largest gold consumer, runs from November to December and from late March through early May. Market analysts said a slight dip in precious metals during the monsoon, encouraged stockists and jewellery fabricators to enlarge their positions to accommodate the festival season demand.

Source: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page32?oid=111161&sn=Detail

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Investors slowly warming to silver's potential - David Levenstein - Mineweb

The metal has managed to hold above the $18.50 level which was previously a key resistance level and continues to flirt with $20 an ounce

Author: David Levenstein

Posted: Thursday , 09 Sep 2010

JOHANNESBURG -

The price of silver has been extremely robust as it flirts with the $20/oz level. The price is now up more than 14% since its previous low of $17.50/oz and one important thing to note is that it has managed to hold above the former key resistance level of $18.50/oz.

As there have not been any major changes regarding the fundamentals on silver that would account for this move, I believe that investors are slowly realizing the potential in silver and that the grey metal is much undervalued and supplies are getting tighter. What was of particular interest last week was that the price of silver moved higher despite the fact that the large bullion banks increased their net short position obviously in an attempt to suppress the price once again. And, on more than one occasion, when the price of gold slipped marginally, silver prices continued their upward move.

While industrial demand for silver is increasing, so is monetary demand. More and more investors are turning to silver as a way to protect the purchasing power of their savings. Like gold, silver has been proven to be an effective way of protecting your wealth. However, unlike gold, silver is hardly ever quoted in the main stream media. But, as the prices begin to move upwards, no doubt it will be noticed and more and more investors will take advantage of the current low prices. Silver bullion bars and silver bullion coins such as the silver Eagles manufactured by the U.S. Mint have become hugely popular with investors. So too are silver rounds which are practically the same as the silver coins except they are not classified as legal tender.

In addition, new investment vehicles such as silver exchange traded funds (ETFs) have taken several million ounces of silver out of the marketplace. While there is a lot of controversy going on at the moment about the actual physical holdings of some of these silver ETF's there is no doubt that they are having some effect on the supply and demand dynamics.

While demand for silver is increasing around the world, supplies are actually declining. Traditionally, there have only been three sources for silver. These include the output from mining companies, the sales from recycling, and government sales. In recent years though, sales from government stockpiles have shrunk to almost nothing as governments have depleted their stockpiles, and there has not been any major new silver discoveries in years.

As the current global currency crisis continues, investors will diversify into hard assets including precious metals such as gold and silver. But, silver has probably the highest potential for profit out of all the precious metals. It is for this reason that the metal should become part of your investment portfolio.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
The action in silver prices has been very positive. The price has punched through the key resistance level of $18.50/oz and has traded upwards to test the $20/oz level. This is the highest the price has been May of this year. While a short-term correction is possible, I believe that silver prices will remain in a positive bias.

About the author

David Levenstein is a leading expert on investing in precious metals .He brings over 30 years experience in futures, equities, forex and bullion.

Source: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page103855?oid=111036&sn=Detail&pid=32

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Silver Investors Get a Gold Star-LYNEKA LITTLE-abc News/Money

Is Silver the New Gold? The Rise of Precious Metals

By LYNEKA LITTLE

Sept. 28, 2010

With stocks in the dumps and government deficits spiraling, Americans are increasingly turning their attention to precious metals like silver, which has doubled in price since the recession hit in 2008.

Silver hit a 30-year high of $21.47 an ounce Monday, up from under $9 when the financial crisis began, rising 35 percent so far this year.

The high price of gold -- the metal has also more than doubled in price over the past two years -- has sent investors scrambling for cheaper silver as a way to protect their assets. Silver has gained 21 percent in price versus gold this year.


"Some people are worried about the currency debasement and have done some research about the fundamentals of silver and fundamentals of gold and silver looks like a better deal," says David Morgan of The Morgan Report.

Silver's rise can also be traced to its industrial uses in everything from jewelry, mobile phone components to batteries.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/gold-now-silver-long-silver-price-surge/story?id=11739548

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Silver heading for supply deficit – Morgan-Liezel Hill-MiningWeekly

By: Liezel Hill

28th September 2010

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) - Silver is likely heading for a supply deficit in the next decade or so, as demand growth gets a boost from new industrial uses for the metal, as well as increased investor interest, analyst and founder of Silver-Investor.com David Morgan said this weekend.

"I am more bullish over the next ten years than I was over the previous ten years [for silver]," he said in a Sunday presentation at the Cambridge House resource investment conference in Toronto.

Silver prices have touched 30-year highs in recent weeks, and reached $21,60/oz on Monday.

The market for the metal was in a supply deficit from the 1990s until about 2006, but moved into a surplus in the last few years. The VM Group/Fortis Bank report on the metal published in June forecast a 7 200 t surplus for 2010.

Even just based on the outlook for increased industrial demand in ten years' time, that would work out to a deficit, Morgan said.

"I am suggesting highly that we are going to go into a deficit again," he stated.

"If you look at the industrial side only you are going to be in a deficit, and if you add any kind of industrial demand on top of that it gets even more bullish."

Morgan commented that the precious metal is being used more and more in food and water purification, solar technology applications, nanotechnology, textile production, radio frequency identification, medical uses and many others.

Silver and gold prices generally track in the same direction - the historical correlation is about 85% - but silver is more volatile, moving further up and down on a percentage basis than gold.

Silver is also a much smaller market than gold, Morgan commented.

"Remember, a four dollar price move in gold would buy the entire silver market."

Much of the world's silver supply is produced as a byproduct from base-metal and other mines.

Source: http://www.miningweekly.com/article/silver-heading-for-supply-deficit-morgan-2010-09-28

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How China Will Drive Silver to $250-Peter Krauth-Money Morning

source:http://www.moneymorning.com/publishersseries/Silver_PSSIL02101.pdf
By Peter Krauth, Contributing Editor, Money Morning

Once upon a time, the Chinese government forbade ownership of all precious metals.

But now, the ban has been lifted. In fact, China just introduced silver bars for investment. And now, state-run China Central Television (CCTV) is running a campaign encouraging the population to invest in silver.

That means there are over a billion potential new silver investors hitting the market. This is especially significant when you consider the average savings rate in China is 30 to

40%.

But the flood of new Chinese silver investors isn't the only factor driving up silver prices. The increased use of silver in everything from solar cell technology to medicine is pushing up prices as well.

Read on to discover exactly why silver will make savvy investors rich in the year ahead... and find out the one stock to buy now to take your portfolio to new highs.

Chinese Demand for Silver

Take a second to think how much of an impact this will have on the silver market - the sheer amount of people, and at such a high rate of savings.

Then you factor in Chinese demand for things silver is need to make - cell phones, computer, batteries, silverware and jewelry. China's silver consumption already accounts for 70% of the global total of industrial use, and its middle class isn't even close to reaching its spending potential.

What's more, those aren't the only reasons analysts are predicting silver prices can reach as high as $100 this year and $250 by 2015.

This free report outlines all the reasons silver is going to continue its ride to another record. It also gives a handful of ways to invest in silver.

Demoting the Silver-Gold Adage

China's impact on the silver market isn't the only thing catching the attention of silver analysts.

The silver-gold ratio tells a compelling story about the price of silver. Put simply, the ratio means how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold. Historically, that ratio has been about 15-to-1. Right now, that ratio is hovering around 59-to-1.

For silver to ‘correct' by returning to its long term silver/gold ratio of about 15, gold at $1,000 means silver should be priced at $66 already.

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who believes that 59-to-1 will hold up much longer because it basically means silver is cheap compared to gold, which opens the door for investors to come in at a good price, such as China. All of China.

More Pressure on Silver Prices

As the global economy expands its size and reach... as technology advances... and as more ways to buy silver becomes available... as silver supplies have dwindled... more factors began affecting the price of silver more exclusively - for better or worse. Some are:

• Silver's Industrial Uses: For decades, silver has been more than a collector's item. It has dozens of uses outside the storage vault. It's used to make currency, jewelry and silverware.

Silver is used to produce highly reflective, architectural mirrors. It's heavily used in the medical field as an antimicrobial - a killer of some bacteria, algae, fungi and viruses. In the labs, silver is used in photographic films and as a catalyst in chemical reactions. And more applications are arriving soon, including using silver in photovoltaic cells in solar-power technology and in rechargeable silver-zinc batteries. In fact, silver's use for industry has gone from 35% of total annual production ten years ago to more than 50% today. One source claims that figure is actually 90%.

• Silver Supply/Demand: Supplies of available silver have dropped by 86% in the past two years. Commodities research firm CPM Group says the current amount of above ground refined silver has fallen from 2.2 billion ounces in 1990 to less than 1 billion today. At the same time that supply is falling, demand is rising... especially industrial demand. The pressure on silver prices will get even stronger as individual investment demand (including the whole Chinese market) goes up.

• Silver Market Size: Silver is a less-active and lower-volume market than gold, which means that purchases even by individual investors can make an impact on silver prices. Better said,

100 silvers buyers purchasing the same amount as 100 gold buyers will have a bigger impact on the market. Think how much prices can spike when millions of Chinese investors flood the market with silver purchases. Now, combine that with the global return of industrial silver demand.

Silver Price Projections

Money Morning's Martin Hutchinson believes silver and gold will continue climbing into 2011 and beyond. If enough investor momentum gains - and if China's push for individual silver investment intensifies - he believes silver could peak past $100 either this year or next.

But, that's just the beginning. Silver could top out at $250/oz. in the next five years as global mine production crawls in the face of increasing consumer and industrial demand. That's an increase of over 1,150%.

Bear in mind that silver prices have been moving faster than gold. So those who want to invest in silver better pull the trigger soon, or watch silver's price explode from the sidelines.

The Best Way to Invest in Silver

Like investing in gold, the most popular ways to invest in silver is ETFs, mining company shares and bullion/coins.

As far as ETFs go, silver investors might want to check out ETFS Silver Trust (NYSE: SIVR). The ETF can be bought and sold just like any stock, and seeks to reflect the value and performance of the price of silver bullion, minus the Trust's operating expenses. The ETF is backed by physical silver bullion held by HSBC in London.

But, to really leverage the price of silver, take a look at Vancouver-based Silver Wheaton Corp.

(NYSE: SLW).

Silver Wheaton which is perhaps the heaviest hitter in the global silver-mining business. It gets its silver from all corners of the world, from the Aurcana mine in Mexico to the Zinkgruvan mine in Sweden. As silver's price shot up 56% in 2009, Silver Wheaton's stock more than doubled that with a 124% gain. And in that span, the company acquired competitor Silverstone Resources Corp. and entered into several long-term agreements with Goldcorp and other major miners in which Silver Wheaton will acquire silver mined by them. Look for Silver Wheaton to skyrocket as silver prices rise.

Editor's Note: Silver isn't the only commodity in high demand in China. Demand for a substance used in everything from medicines to nuclear bombs already tops production by 16 times... This supply/demand mismatch has doubled the price of this substance in just one year. But the boom has barely even started.

Discover the best way to play it (it's not by buying the substance itself) before demand skyrockets even more.

Read more...

$2,500 Gold Could Easily Result in $178.50 Silver – Here’s Why!-Lorimer Wilson-SilverSeek

Source: http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1284915551.php

By: Lorimer Wilson

Posted 19 September, 2010

More than 95 respected economists, academics, analysts and market commentators are of the firm opinion that gold will go to $2,500 and beyond before the parabolic peak is reached. In fact, the majority (55) think a price of $5,000 or more - even as high as $15,000 - is actually more likely! As such, just imagine what is in store for silver given its historical price relationship with gold!

Precious metal bull markets have 3 distinct demand-driven stages and we are now quickly approaching or perhaps even in the very early part of the last stage which occurs when the general public around the world starts investing in gold and this deluge of capital into gold causes it to escalate dramatically (i.e. go parabolic) in price.

Gold
Gold went up 24% in 2009 and is up 16% YTD and, as such, there are no shortage of prognosticators who see gold going parabolic reminiscent of 1979 when gold rose 289.3% in the course of just over a year (from a $216.55 closing price on Jan. 1, 1979 to a closing price of $843 per ounce barely a year later on Jan. 21, 1980) and 128% higher in a late-1979 parabolic blow-off of just under 11 weeks! A 289% increase in the price of gold from $1275 would put gold at $4,960. (More on what that might mean for the future price of silver is analyzed below.) That being the case what appear on the surface to be rather outlandish projections of what the bull market in gold will top out at don't seem quite so far-fetched. (For a complete list of the economists, academics, market analysts and financial commentators who maintain that gold will go parabolic to $2,500 -$15,000 in the near future please see: http://www.munknee.com/2010/09/5000-gold-bandwagon-now-includes-these-55-analysts-got-gold/

Silver
Silver has proven itself, time and again, to be a safe haven for investors during times of economic uncertainty and, as such, with the current economy in difficulty the silver market has become a flight to quality investment vehicle along with gold. The 49% increase in silver in 2009 (and 23% YTD) attests to that in spades. During the last parabolic phase for silver in 1979/80 it went from a low of $5.94 on January 2nd, 1979 to a close of $49.45 in early January, 1980 which represented an increase of 732.5% in just over one year. Such a percentage increase from the current price of almost $21 would represent a future parabolic top price of $175. (For what that might mean for the future price of gold see the analysis below.) Frankly, such prices seem impossible in practical terms but that is what the numbers tell us.

Gold:Silver Ratio
The current gold:silver ratio has been range-bound between 70:1 and 60:1 for quite some time which is way out of whack with the historical relationship between the two precious metals. It begs the question: "Is now the perfect time to buy silver instead of the much more expensive gold metal?"

How both gold and silver perform, in and of themselves, does not tell the complete picture by a long shot, however. More important is the price relationship - the correlation - of one to the other over time which is called the gold:silver ratio. Based on silver's historical correlation r-square with gold of approximately 90 - 95% silver's daily trading action almost always mirrors, and usually amplifies, underlying moves in gold. With significant increases in the price of gold expected over the next few years even greater increases are anticipated in silver's price movement in the months and years to come because silver is currently seriously undervalued relative to gold as the following historical relationships attest.

Let's look at the gold:silver ratio from several different perspectives:
- Over the past 125 years the mean gold:silver ratio (i.e. 50% above and 50% below) has been 45.69 ounces of silver to 1 ounce of gold.
- In the last 25 years (since 1985) the mean gold:silver ratio has increased to 45.69:1
- The present gold:silver ratio has been range-bound between 60:1 and 70:1 (61.3:1 as of September 17/10).
- Interestingly, during the build-up to the parabolic blow-off in 1979/80 silver outpaced gold going up 732.5% vs. gold's 289.3% causing the ratio to drop from 38:1 in January 1979 to 13.99:1 at the parabolic peak for both metals in January,1980.

Let's now look at the various price levels for gold and the various silver:gold ratios mentioned above one by one and see what conclusions we can draw.

First let's use the Sept. 17, 2010 price of $1276.50 for gold and apply the various gold:silver ratios mentioned above and see what they do for the potential % increase in, and price of, silver.

Gold @ $1276.50 using the current 61.3:1 gold:silver ratio puts silver at $20.82 (Sept. 17/10)
Gold @ $1276.50 using the above 45.69:1 gold:silver ratio puts silver at $27.94 (i.e. +34.2%)
Gold @ $1276.50 using the above 13.99:1 gold:silver ratio puts silver at $91.24 (i.e. +338.2%)

Now let's apply the projected potential parabolic peaks of $2,500, $5,000 and $10,000 to the various gold:silver ratios and see what they suggest is the parabolic top for silver.

@ $2,500 Gold
Gold @ $2,500 using the gold:silver ratio of 61:1 puts silver at $41
Gold @ $2,500 using the gold:silver ratio of 45:1 puts silver at $55.50
Gold @ $2,500 using the gold:silver ratio of 14:1 puts silver at $178.50

Before we go any further the above analyses bears closer scrutiny. In paragraph four above it was noted that "During the last parabolic phase for silver in 1979/80 it went from a low of $5.94 on January 2nd, 1979 to a close of $49.45 in early January, 1980 which represented an increase of 732.5% in just over one year." Such a percentage increase from the current price of almost $21 would represent a future parabolic top price of $175.

It is interesting to note that the above $175 is almost identical to the $178.50 that would result from a reversion to the mean in the gold:silver ratio with gold at $2,500. For the gold bugs who believe that gold is going to go even higher it can only mean a very much higher price for silver as the analyses below suggest.

@ $5,000 Gold
Gold @ $5,000 using the gold:silver ratio of 61.1 puts silver at $82
Gold @ $5,000 using the gold:silver ratio of 45:1 puts silver at $111
Gold @ $5,000 using the gold:silver ratio of 14:1 puts silver at $357

@ $10,000 Gold
Gold @ $10,000 using the gold:silver ratio of 61:1 puts silver at $164
Gold @ $10,000 using the gold:silver ratio of 45:1 puts silver at $222
Gold @ $10,000 using the gold:silver ratio of 14:1 puts silver at $714!!

From the above it seems that, any way we look at it, physical silver is currently undervalued compared to gold bullion and is in position to generate substantially greater returns than investing in gold bullion.

Summary
History will look back at the artificially high gold:silver ratio of the past century as an anomaly, caused by the dollar bubble and the world being deceived into believing that fiat currencies are real money, when in fact they are all an illusion. This fiat currency experiment will end badly in a currency crisis and when that happens, as it surely will, gold will go parabolic and silver along with it but even more so as the gold:silver ratio adjusts itself to a more historical correlation. The wealthiest people in the future will be those who put 10% to 15% (or perhaps more - much more!) of their portfolio dollars into physical silver today and were smart enough to research and pick the best silver mining/royalty stocks and warrants to maximize their returns.

Indeed, while gold's meteoric rise still has room to run, silver's run is yet to get started. As such, it certainly appears evident that now is the time to buy all things silver.

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Will silver and gold decouple?-Julian Phillips-Mineweb

Source: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=111422&sn=Detail&pid=33

Silver has been tracking gold, but its peaks and troughs tend to be more extreme - will this pattern continue or will silver move even faster?

Author: Julian Phillips
Posted: Friday , 17 Sep 2010

BENONI (GoldForecaster.com) -

HAS SILVER BEEN COUPLED TO GOLD?

For the last few years silver has moved in relative tandem with the gold price up to now. We called it the ‘long shadow of gold' because it would rise further and fall further than gold, but they did move together. Occasionally silver did pause as gold rose but the ‘shunt' effect [when a train pulls forward with a line of carriages in tow and each jumps forward as their links tighten] kicked in and it jerked forward to catch up with gold's moves.

Many investors keep their eyes focused on the Gold: Silver Ratio [one ounce of gold buys x number of ounces of silver] and trade it regularly. Right now that ratio is at 1: 60. However, by coupling we also mean will they continue to act and react together on a daily basis, apart from price differentials.

MOVING TOGETHER

When it comes to market prices moving up and down and sideways together, we are not looking at the commodity aspects of the metals, but the market perception that these two are precious metals that were money for the bulk of man's history. Savings were expressed almost entirely in these metals and once deemed as the only valid money around.

MONEY OR PRECIOUS METALS?

This is where the relationship between the two metals is anchored. Despite any industrial or jewelry [solely for decoration] uses that do not relate to wealth retention, gold in so many parts of the world is considered money. The developed West does not consider it so, even in the face of over 30,000 tonnes of gold held in central banks worldwide and many central banks now buying it. But even developed world central banks are keeping a firm hold on what they do have.

So we must ask, are these simply precious metals or do they serve some as real money. This is critical to the movements of gold and silver prices. If the overall perception of the two is of future ‘money' [as a measure of value] then they will reflect the levels of uncertainty over fiat money.

In support of this come the comments by Alan Greenspan spoken as recently as this week. At a Council on Foreign Relations meeting Mr Greenspan commented, that he'd "thought a lot about gold prices over the years and decided the supply and demand explanations treating gold like other commodities ‘simply don't pan out'.

Mr. Greenspan had concluded that gold is simply different. He said, "If all currencies are moving up or down together, the question is: relative to what? Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It signals problems with respect to currency markets. Central banks should pay attention to it". We believe central banks are doing just that.

As we enter what could be a volatile period for international currencies as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner begins a more aggressive tack against China's Yuan exchange rate [the Dollar is slipping again] and Japan intervenes to weaken the Yen, confidence in fiat currencies' ability to truly measures value is waning. That's why the two are moving together and will do so in the future.

We qualify that to some extent, as some fundamental factors affecting the two precious metals are affecting the silver price in particular [see below].

Another change is emerging in the silver market in the developing world. In both India and China amongst smaller investors, silver is far more affordable as the gold price roars out of their range. So the concept of silver being the ‘poor man's gold' is rising fast and showing itself in the rapidly rising demand for silver in those nations. This represents a small but significant diversion of demand away from gold to silver as prices rise for the two metals.

SILVER PRICES AFFECTED BY FUNDAMENTALS

Gold has seen a halt to central bank selling in the first year of the third Central Bank Gold Agreement. Silver has only now seen an end to ‘official' selling by India, China and last of all Russia. This has allowed a good source of supply to disappear and forced the buyers of that silver to go to the open market to get its silver. In addition, the decline in uses in photography is being overtaken by the new uses for silver in solar panels, ‘rfids', medicine and other electronic uses. All this silver is being consumed and will be until its monetary role in the long-term prices it out of the consuming markets and, like gold, it is simply stored not consumed. Most of you will not believe that is a possibility. The net result of these two changes in silver's fundamentals will be for silver's price to rise much faster than the gold price in percentage terms.

It is not our purpose to detail where the silver price is going [that has to be reserved for Subscribers] but we can say that we expect a narrowing of the gold: silver ratio.

DE-COUPLE?

We do not think that the gold and silver prices will de-couple in terms of moving in relative tandem, but in percentage terms there will be a widening of that coupling.

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How Second Rate Silver Brings First Rate Returns

Source: http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1288206023.php

By: Dr. Jeffrey Lewis

Posted 27 October, 2010

Silver has dominated the commodity and precious metals explosion through 2009 and 2010 with returns that meet and exceed any other precious metal. However, why is silver still a top investment? For two very important reasons: its volatile supply and its stance as gold's little brother.



Silver's Volatile Supply



As you probably know by now, silver production usually occurs as a result of mining for other metals. Today's miners aren't just going out to the mines to find silver, but instead looking for other metals like copper and gold, and they just happen to bring up silver in the process. This doesn't seem like that much of an important factor, as even the beloved gasoline is a byproduct of oil refining (and was once thrown away!), so it wouldn't seem to be so important that silver is a secondary concern for miners.



However, the fact that silver is a byproduct of other mining interests is very important. The first reason is because the total value of metals mined is only a fraction made up of silver. Because the total value of these metals is only made up of a fraction of silver, a rapid change in silver price does little to influence the amount of metals that are brought to the ground.



Supply cannot in any way, shape or form possibly keep up with demand. When demand for silver increases, so does the price, but the producers, who have a greater financial interest in other metals, cannot bring large supplies of silver to the market unless the numbers for the other metals makes sense. Perhaps the best scenario for silvers value would be a drop in the value of gold, nickel, lead and zinc. If the price of other metals fall, the amount of silver found in tandem with other metals would too.



Little Brother Effect



Silver and gold dominate the scene for stores of value and inflation hedges. However, for many, a proper collection of gold bullion at $1350 an ounce is out of reach, and fractional pieces are marked up 10-20%. So where do these people turn? To silver!



This, I believe, is one of the largest reasons why silver continues to rally higher and higher than other precious metals. While only a few wealthier, or overleveraged, investors can afford to purchase ounce after ounce of gold each and every week, silver investing takes a far smaller toll on an investor's bank account. This proves to be even more true in emerging markets like China and India, where a full ounce bar of gold would be out of reach for most workers, skilled or unskilled.



This effect will become even more prominent with the onset of 1099 reform. Such reform will make all gold coins of a half ounce or greater reportable to the IRS through a 1099 form. However, reaching the same threshold with silver would require the purchase of 24 ounces of coin, a very dramatic difference.



While demand for silver will continue to grow as gold investors swap for untraceable silver, the supply side of the equation will fail to catch up due to silver's secondary status in the hearts of the mining companies. Stock up because the best days are still ahead.



Dr. Jeffrey Lewis

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Silver shines as growth outpaces gold

Source: http://www.miningmx.com/news/markets/Silver-shines-as-growth-outpaces-gold.htm
Reuters | Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:53

[miningmx.com] -- LONG called "the poor man's gold", silver is likely to outperform its pricey counterpart this year, a trend that makes silver-related equities an attractive option for investors looking to diversify their portfolios.



Spot silver prices rose 48% in 2009, and have already risen more than 38% this year, while spot gold prices are up around 23%.



The gold-to-silver ratio, which tracks how many ounces of silver are needed to buy one ounce of gold, has gone from 64 to about 60 in a month, and the spread is expected to keep narrowing.

That's good news for silver miners and royalty companies, with share prices in the sector jumping as much as 70% since the beginning of the year.



"Many of those companies have a very good growth profile. In the next two, three, four years, they're going to be producing more metal than they are now," said Bart Melek, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. "And there's value to that."



By buying shares in a silver producer with a strong growth profile, an investor is paying a lower price for more metal in the future.



With silver, Melek sees the upside outweighing the risk. He sees spot silver trading at an average of $23 in 2011, up from a estimated average of $18.91 in 2010.



"I think silver will most likely continue to outperform gold," he said. "Silver benefits from being gold-like and it benefits from being an industrial metal, which I think is going to tighten up the supply-demand balance down the road."



Silver production is expected to be around 23,000 tonnes this year, with an additional 7,000 tonnes from recovered scrap.



About half the demand for the metal is industrial, where it is primarily used in electronics. Silver is also used in jewelry, coins and to back exchange-traded products (ETP) and exchange-traded funds (ETF).



A silver-backed ETF is a fund that trades on the stock market and follows the value of silver. It is more secure than stocks because its value is backed by real silver, but there are higher costs because the silver has to be stored.



"Fundamentally we perceive the companies - and that holds for gold and silver producers - as better bets than ETFs," Melek said. "The ETF has storage costs, and all sorts of costs associated with it."

Silver is a unique metal for investors because only about 30% of production comes from actual silver mines.



"Two-thirds of silver is mined as a by-product of other metals - mainly gold, copper or zinc," said Darren Lekkerkerker, a portfolio manager at Fidelity Management. "So if the silver price goes up, but the copper price doesn't go up, they're not going to mine more."



This means that while the demand for silver is hot right now, most miners do not have the flexibility to increase production to capitalize on the high prices.



In fact, major producers like Barrick Gold and Goldcorp don't even process the silver they mine. They simply sell future silver streams to royalty companies for a set price in exchange for cash up front.



It is a model has worked out well for industry leader Silver Wheaton.



The Vancouver-based royalty company, which has purchase agreements with mines in the Americas and Europe, pays about $4 per ounce of silver. The current spot price for silver is about five times higher, at $23.58 an ounce.



"The benefit of owning a royalty company is that they have no exposure to capex and operating cost increases," said Lekkerkerker, referring to capital expenditures.



Shares of Silver Wheaton have risen almost 70 percent since the beginning of the year, opening at C$27.36 on Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.



CHANGING MODEL



But royalty companies aren't the only investment opportunity in the silver market.

"Historically the silver market has been viewed as a marginal sector, essentially the poor man's precious metal sector," said BMO analyst Andrew Kaip.



In the past, silver miners were small companies that had to plow all their earnings back into operations each year to maintain production.



Now the companies mining silver are getting bigger, and with the current high selling price, the sector is changing dramatically.



"An entirely different business model is emerging," said Kaip. "Now you're actually seeing a lot of these silver companies looking like they will build significant cash positions."



He points to Pan American Silver as a good long-term bet for shareholder appreciation, and to Coeur D'Alene as a promising option in the next few quarters.



For those willing to take more risk, juniors like Bear Creek Mining, which has risen over 45 percent in the past two months, and Tahoe Resources, which is up 30% in the same period, are seen as a good investment.


With the US Federal Reserve signaling that the U.S. economy many need more stimulus, and confidence in paper currencies dipping, investors shouldn't worry that they have missed the boat on silver.



In fact, analysts see plenty of space for silver to continue to gain on gold.



"We're just starting to see the silver equities going the way we thought they would," Kaip said. "I expect that trend to continue - it's still a bright future for silver stocks."

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If You Haven't Bought Silver Yet, Read This-Chris Weber-TopStockAnalysts.com

Source: http://www.topstockanalysts.com/cmnts/2010/11-04-10-cw-silver.asp?utm_source=+NL-TopStockAn&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=TopStockAnalysts.com_TSA_Digest_--_11-04-1011/4/2010
By: Chris Weber, Editor, The Weber Global Opportunities Report

Published: November 4, 2010

The last time I was able to identify a period when a precious metals correction was about over happened two years ago...

At that time, gold hit a low of $693 and silver $9.63. Since then, gold has risen over 40%, but silver has soared 158%. This is an extraordinary occurrence in just two years.

Two weeks ago, I thought both metals, and especially silver, were due for a rest, and perhaps a correction.

Silver reached $24.75 on October 14. I expected a back-off to begin. But so far, we've had very little. Silver briefly touched as low as $23. That is a 7% fall. In the universe of silver, this is nothing. And then the rise resumed. As I wrote this, silver reached a new high of $24.91, surpassing October 14's $24.75.

This all feels unprecedented to me. Gold has not been giving people an advantageous entry point for a long time now. But silver is supposed to crash at certain times... It can almost be relied upon to do this.

Not this time. At least, not so far. Given an opportunity to correct or even consolidate its prior gains, silver barely takes a breath and then reaches new highs.

Why? Some say silver shorts are covering. But why now? Why this time? Silver prices refused to fall, and then rose... Of course under these circumstances shorts will cover.

No answer I've heard is satisfying. I just take the price action as the news. And the news is that this is bullish behavior the likes of which I don't think I even saw back in the last bull market of the 1970s.

Of course, over the life of that bull market, silver soared from $1.29 to $48: a rise of 3,600%. So far this time, silver has only risen from $4.03 to $24.91. That's "just" 518% during a similar time period.

But the feeling this time is different. Silver has only had one typical correction: from $23 to just under $10. But while the percentage correction was typical (over 50%), it was all over in just seven months. A huge and powerful bull then quickly returned silver to new highs.

And so far, this time, when I expected a real rest, silver isn't having it at all.

It is possible that average investors now think that gold is too expensive for them and see silver as something they should have. For a few hundred dollars or the equivalent in other currencies, silver is regarded as within the budgets of all investors, be they from India or Indiana, from China or Chinon.

Can you imagine what would happen if every investor on earth became convinced that they needed to own some silver? My old forecast of $187 per ounce may start to not look so wild.

One other thing has happened recently that I haven't seen mentioned. Silver has now clearly overtaken gold as the best-performing asset class since 2000. Gold has risen from $256 to $1,365. That is a rise of 433%. Silver has risen from $4.02 to $24.91. That is a rise of 520%.

As important, those advising silver accumulation have been few in number, and remain so.

For those who have been waiting to buy or add to their silver holdings, there is no guarantee we'll have any big correction, or even a consolidation. I'm forced to advise people to simply buy or add without trying to time their purchases.

In general, this is what you should do in a bull market, but I had until now thought I was clever enough to attempt to time purchases a little. I no longer consider myself so clever. So my advice is to bite the bullet and accumulate at least some physical silver.

-- Chris Weber
Editor
The Weber Global Opportunities Report

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Silver is underpriced to gold. Invest in Silver-Jeff Clark-CommodityOnline

Source: http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Silver-is-underpriced-to-gold-Invest-in-Silver-32947-3-1.html
Published on: October 28 2010 05:05 GMT

By Jeff Clark, Senior Editor, BIG GOLD
We once had an ongoing series in BIG GOLD called, "1001 Reasons to Own Gold." The idea was that there were so many valid reasons to own the metal that I wanted to track and report on them. If you've been invested in the precious metals arena, you know there have been a myriad of bullish indicators for silver this year as well.

Here's a couple new reasons to own silver that a lot of mainstream investors probably aren't aware of...

Due to increased demand from industry and investors, silver exports from China are expected to drop about 40% this year. And that's actually an improvement; customs data show exports plunged almost 60% through the first eight months. China exported about 3,500 metric tons of silver in 2009, but has exported only 970 tons through August of this year.

What a lot of Westerners don't know is that China ended export "rebates" two years ago to stem the shipment of natural resources leaving the country. As a result of the regulation, silver exports decreased in 2009 but are nothing like what they're experiencing this year. In other words, the large drop in exports is a direct result of a huge increase in demand within China itself. According to one Chinese banker, the spike in demand is coming from all areas - jewelry, investment, and industrial. In his words, it's led to a "physical market shortage in the Far East."

How important is this? China is the world's third largest producer of silver (after Peru and Mexico), so the amount of silver coming to the global marketplace this year will drop by more than 74 million ounces. This represents roughly 8.3% of total annual global supply from 2009. If worldwide demand continues at its current pace, where is the extra metal going to come from? This alone tells us the price of silver will move higher.

The next item I sleuthed out was that the U.S. Mint is expected to release a new five-ounce silver bullion coin this year, the first ever. The coin will be three inches in diameter and have a composition of .999 fine silver.

I've read the five-ounce bullion coins will be near-exact replicas of the America the Beautiful quarters. There will reportedly be five different designs, and the mint plans to produce 100,000 of each. I can't wait to see them.

The coins will be classified as bullion, meaning they should be available to the same dealers already authorized by the mint. This will likely create excitement in the silver market, especially when you consider its affordability. At $23 silver, the five-ounce bullion coin will cost $115, plus premium. One ounce of gold runs $1,340 as I write, while five ounces will cost you $6,700 plus commission.

Perhaps most bullish is the fact that silver is vastly underpriced when compared to gold. Look at it this way: gold is currently priced 57% above its 1980 nominal high of $850; silver would have to more than double to reach its 1980 nominal high of $48.70. And that's excluding any inflation-adjusted calculation. Yes, silver's spike was partly a direct result of hoarding by the Hunt Brothers, but my question to the skeptics is this: what's keeping us from seeing similar stockpiling today? What if there are several Hunt Brothers out there?

It's true that central banks don't buy and store physical silver, so one source of demand that's common for gold isn't present for silver. But let's keep things in perspective: demand for all forms of silver is rising, and we see no reason the trend won't continue. And with indicators like decreasing supply from China and increased attention from a new bullion coin, I say the big picture on the silver price is extremely bullish.

This silver sleuth says, buy some silver on the next dip. There's lots of reasons you won't regret it.

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NIA: Silver Will Be the Single Best Investment This Decade-MunKnee.com

Source: http://www.munknee.com/2010/10/national-inflation-association-silver-will-be-the-single-best-investment-this-decade/

October 7, 2010 by Editor

The most important thing you need to know is that silver is the single best investment for the next decade. In the opinion of the National Inflation Association (NIA) investing in silver is the only sure way to tremendously increase one's purchasing power over the next ten years. Words: 865

So says the National Inflation Association (www.inflation.us) in an article* which Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com, has reformatted below for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. (Please note that this paragraph must be included in any article reposting to avoid copyright infringement.) The NIA goes on to say:

Throughout world history, only ten times more silver has been mined than gold. If you go back about 1,000 years ago between the years 1000 and 1250, gold was worth ten times more than silver worldwide. From year 1250 to 1792, the gold to silver ratio slowly increased from 10 to 15 and the Coinage Act of 1792 officially defined a gold to silver ratio of 15. The ratio remained at 15 until forty-two years later when the ratio was increased in 1834 to 16, where it remained until silver was demonetized in 1873.

The gold to silver ratio remained between 10 and 16 for 873 years! It is only over the past 100 years that the gold to silver ratio has averaged 50. History will look back at the artificially high gold to silver ratio of the past century as an anomaly, caused by the dollar bubble and the world being deceived into believing that fiat currencies are real money, when in fact they're all an illusion. This fiat currency experiment will end badly in a currency crisis. The wealthiest people will be those who bought silver today and were smart enough to research and pick the best silver mining stocks.

Editor's Note: Don't forget to sign up for our FREE weekly "Top 100 Stock Market, Asset Ratio & Economic Indicators in Review"

While the vast majority of the gold ever produced remains sitting in vaults, 95% of the silver produced has been consumed by industry for thousands of applications in such tiny amounts that most of it will never be recycled and seen on the market again. Nobody knows the exact above-ground supply of silver today, but most likely it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 billion ounces. That's a total worldwide market value of only $17.4 billion, when the world has over $7 trillion in foreign currency reserves, mostly in fiat currencies that they will need to diversify out of due to rampant inflation.

Besides the fact that the world has been ignoring the monetary value of silver, silver prices are artificially low due to a large concentrated naked short position. It's not a coincidence that the day silver reached its multi-decade high of over $21 per ounce in March of 2008, was the same day Bear Stearns failed. Bear Stearns was a holder of a massive short position in silver. In our opinion, this was likely a naked short position because there is nobody in the world who owns such a large amount of silver for Bear Stearns to have borrowed.

The reason why we believe the Federal Reserve was so eager to orchestrate a bailout of Bear Stearns, is because Bear Stearns was on the verge of being forced to cover their silver short position. Because the silver market is so small and tightly held, if Bear Stearns was forced to cover their short position, silver prices could have potentially risen to $50 per ounce or higher overnight. The world would have seen how economically unstable our country is and confidence in the U.S. dollar would have rapidly deteriorated.

JP Morgan still holds the silver short position they inherited from Bear Stearns. The concentrated naked short position in silver today is the largest short position in the history of all commodities, as a percentage of its market size. Eventually, JP Morgan will have to cover this short position or it could jeopardize their existence.

The best evidence that the short position in silver is naked and not backed by real silver, is the differential between what silver trades for on the Comex and what real people are willing to pay for physical silver on eBay. Every hour on eBay, there are dozens of one ounce silver coins selling for approximately $25. That's about a 43% premium over the current spot price of silver. With so much demand for physical silver, we doubt the silver shorts in the paper market will be able to manipulate prices downward for much longer. A major short squeeze could be right around the corner and silver could take off in a way that shocks even those who are most bullish."

The fiat currency experiment will end badly in a currency crisis. The wealthiest people will be those who bought silver today and were smart enough to research and pick the best silver mining stocks.

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Why You Should Have Silver in Your Portfolio-Jerry Western-Financial Sense PDF Print E-mail Why You Should Have Silver in Your Portfolio

Source: http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jerry-western/why-you-should-have-silver-in-your-portfolio

As Well As Gold

Silver has had quite a run the last couple months so it's no surprise that it has gained much attention and interest from investors - even more so than gold. It is extremely volatile, however, and tends to rise or fall in spurts so I'd like to focus on its attributes as compared to gold, make a case for holding some, and discuss some ultimate price possibilities.

Gold is known as the ultimate form of money; the king of money. Silver is generally thought of as gold's little brother or ‘Poor Man's Gold'. It is said that:

Gold is the money of Monarchs,
Silver is the money of Gentlemen,
Barter is the money of Peasants, and
Debt is the money of Slaves.

Both gold and silver have been used as money forever. Historically, the price of gold has almost always been greater than that of silver. This is because silver is ten to twenty times more plentiful in nature.

Should We Only Hold Gold?

I say no for the following reasons:

1. You get more (metal) for your money holding silver.

2. The price of silver has more room to appreciate, both because of its relative low price and because of the current relatively high gold:silver price ratio.

Should We Only Hold Silver?

I say no again - for the following reasons:

1. Gold is highly recognizable and highly coveted in all societies. Most world governments and central banks hold gold but virtually no silver, save a few notable exceptions (Russia, China, and India). They know that gold is the ultimate money.

2. Just as you would diversify your portfolio among asset classes and large/small cap stocks, etc., so too should you diversity between gold and silver. No one knows which will appreciate faster or further and be the superior investment going forward. Therefore, I hold both.

What Are Silver's Major Attributes?

Silver has three huge attributes that make it special, valuable, and unique:

1. Versatility: silver has many and varied important uses where it is the best solution. It is either the best material to use for a given application or it is the least expensive of all the alternatives.


2. Inelasticity: more silver is not produced as price increases because most silver comes from other-than-silver mines, and less is not consumed as the price increases because there are no less-expensive alternatives.


3. Duality: silver has the potential to do well price-wise in both an up and a down economy. Being both an industrial metal as well as money in and of itself, silver tends to have a market no matter the condition of the economy.

How Do Gold and Silver Compare With Each Other?

Below are 22 things to ponder when comparing and contrasting gold and silver, in no particular order:

1. Gold is hoarded and the above-ground stockpile is continuously expanding. Silver is consumed and is uneconomical to recycle in most uses.


2. There is greater than 300 times the dollar value of gold in above ground form as there is silver. Silver is the smaller market by far.


3. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are fewer years of production of silver left in the ground than any other metal or mineral, including gold.


4. Silver is used in more applications than any other commodity (aside from petroleum).


5. About 30% of silver comes from primary silver mines. Approximately 70% is byproduct of other primary metal mines. Most gold is produced from primary gold mines.


6. There is less gold mined than silver, but there is more gold than silver bullion in existence.


7. Both gold and silver have been selling near or even below the cost of production for the last 15 years.


8. Both gold and silver are up over five fold since the beginning of this current bull market.


9. Silver is used in industry and for investment. Gold is used almost entirely for investment.


10 Silver is more expensive or difficult to store (or hide) than gold because you get more for your money.


11. It would be easier for silver to rise higher on a percentage basis than gold due to the ‘law of large numbers'.


12. Only about 2% of the 160,000 tonnes of gold unearthed over the last 5,000 years has been lost and is unrecoverable according to Goldfields Mineral Service (GFMS) and the World Gold Council (WGC) while most of the silver ever mined is unrecoverable and gone for good.


13. Silver supply and demand are both ‘inelastic'. This means that supply cannot be ramped up quickly when its price rises.


14. The National Inflation Association (NIA) picked silver as its investment of the decade in December 2009


15. The Silver:Gold Price Ratio favors silver appreciation to return to historic norms.


16. Both gold and silver tend to rise and fall in price together but not necessarily in percentage terms. Their price movements are still highly correlated though.


17. In precious metal bull markets, silver always outperforms gold before it is over. Silver has a tendency to underperform gold as a rally in the metals gets going; however, it tends to greatly outperform gold near the market tops. At its peak, for example, gold was up nearly 250% in early 2008 but silver was up well over 300% at the same time from the beginning of 2002. As the metals both declined throughout the remainder of 2008, silver fell farther than gold from peak to trough. Silver fell nearly 60% while gold fell about half as much or 30%. Now on the way back up silver is again leading.


18. Gold and silver related stocks tend to greatly outperform on the way up but terribly underperform on the way down. On the way up, many stocks leveraged the metals 3, or 4, or 5:1 but on the way down some gold and silver stocks lost 90% or more of their pre-crash market value.


19. When the economy is good, silver will tend to outperform and when the economy is bad, gold will tend to outperform. This occurs because silver is also an industrial metal besides being a monetary metal and, [as such,] is in great demand when the economy is rolling along but less in demand when the economy is in recession. Conversely, gold tends to be forgotten when times are good and remembered when times are bad. Even though gold fell substantially during the financial meltdown of 2008, it fell less than did the stock indexes, silver, or oil.
20. I believe silver may outperform gold dramatically before the bull has run its course. Silver rose more than 38 fold in the 70's bull market; from a fixed price of $1.29 to $50 ($52.50 CBOT). Silver bottomed just above $4 in 2001. 38 x 4 = $152. Not a bad initial target.


21. Interestingly, the Silver/Gold ratio bottomed at ~ 16:1 in 1980. In other words, you could exchange one ounce of gold for 16 ounces of silver near the end of that bull market. Today, the ratio is about three and a half times higher (~56:1). Should gold get to $6375 and the ratio return to 16:1 at the top, silver will reach almost $400 an ounce. That's a 100 fold increase from its pre-bull low. Remember, we're only playing with numbers here, the markets will surprise and do their own thing in due course.


22. The following two extremely important and potentially explosive events for silver have happened just recently:

a) CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton, in regards to the trading of silver on the Commodities Exchanges, said; "There have been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control that price", and "I believe there have been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets", and "the public deserves some answers to their concerns that silver markets are being, and have been, manipulated."

b) Two separate lawsuits against JPMorganChase and HSBC for manipulating and suppressing the price of silver futures on the Comex in violation of the Commodity Exchange Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust were filed as class action suits. Any hint that these suits have merit and may be settled in favor of the complainants or a finding of price suppression by the CFTC in its current silver market investigation, could send the silver price sharply higher.

Which is better to own – gold or silver?

I own some of both but I believe that silver will outperform gold in the end.

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Silver Still One Of The Best Performing Assets This Decade - David Levenstein - Mineweb

Source: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page103855?oid=118430&sn=Detail&pid=102055
Silver had a truly spectacular year, in 2010. The price increased from $15 an ounce to just over $31 an ounce, an increase of a whopping 106% in US dollars. And, no matter what currency you look at the price of silver increased anywhere from 60% to as much as 266% (Venezuela Bolivas). Since the bull market in silver began in 2003, the price has increased by as much as 775%. If we use the same example I used to illustrate the gains in gold, then an investment of $100,000 in silver would now be worth around $700,000! By comparison, over a ten year period, an investment of $100,000 in gold would now be worth $560,000 and an investment in bonds yielding say 8% per annum over a ten year period would be worth approximately $216,000. You don't have to be rocket scientist to see which investment has been the best performer.
Even though I have continually urged investors to allocate some of their funds to silver since the price was trading just above $6 an ounce in 2004, many of these individuals, have preferred to remain in equities, funds, money market and bonds. But, when the price of silver broke above $30 an ounce, many of these same individuals asked if it is now too late to enter the market. While I cannot explain the psychological imprint of these investors, I have seen this behavior many times over the last 30 years or so. These types of investors invariably seem to need the validation of their bankers, stock brokers, accountants etc., before making a decision. Yet, their advisers usually have no knowledge about these markets and are therefore not really qualified to render any advice on their potential or lack thereof. Then, by the time these investors realize that they have missed out on some major gains, and decide to enter the market, they deliberate waiting for a pull-back that never seems to come. And then, out of pure frustration, they finally enter the market, but only when it is close to peaking. My point is very simple. Don't make this mistake regarding silver. Despite the massive gains we have seen in the last ten years, this market is still far from peaking and still offers investors huge potential.
As I have already mentioned many investors, who have already missed out on some stellar returns, are now asking if they should enter the market at the current levels. And, as I have alluded to many times in the past, it depends on whether you are a trader who takes a short-term view or an investor who has a long-term time horizon. If you are a trader, I cannot predict the short-term moves, but if you are an investor I believe that the current pull-back in prices will not last very long and offers a wonderful opportunity to buy some silver. In the long run if you buy now and even if the market pulls back say another $3 an ounce, this is not going to have a major impact on your investment if the price goes to as high as $125 an ounce in a few years' time.
I believe that we will see the price of silver trade at $45 an ounce before the end of the year. On this basis, if you are able to buy at current levels of say around $29 an ounce and my analysis is correct, a return of 55% in 12 months' time is nothing to be laughed at. But, over the next coming years, I sincerely believe that we are going to see prices trade at several multiples of the current price.

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Silver Price Surprise Pushes 2011 Forecast To 48% Gain - Goldbug - Bullion Vault

Source: http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/silver_price_011120118
LAST YEAR'S surprise jump in the physical Silver Price won't see London's leading experts caught off-guard again, according to the professional market's annual forecasting contest.

Missing 2010's average Silver Price by more than $1 per ounce – and missing last year's peak price by nearly 25% on average – the 24 entrants to this year's London Bullion Market Association forecast competition now see a rise of 48% in 2011 on average, with the physical spot-market price tradin at $29.88 across 2011.

Average forecasts for 2011's peak Silver Price stand at $38.66 per ounce, with one analyst – Jeffrey Rhodes of INTL Commodities in Dubai – predicting that the Silver Price will hit its 1980 top of $50 per ounce.

On the downside, the forecast low averages $22.93 per ounce – a rise of 51% from 2010's actual low in the Silver Price.

Last year's LBMA Silver Forecast winner – Peter Fertig of QCR Quantitative Commodity Research in Hainburg, Germany – now forecasts an average 2011 price for Silver Bullion of $31.10 per ounce, with the year's high and low standing at $27 and $35 respectively.

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Silver: From $30/Oz To Over $500 By 2020 - Jason Hommel - Silver Seek (And from $500 to $5000 by 2030!)

Source: http://news.silverseek.com/GoldIsMoney/1294902060.php

Silver: From $30/oz. to over $500 by 2020. In under a minute, I can tell you why that price must happen, and likely when. It seems to me that the public will one day wake up and start buying silver to protect from inflation. Thus, long before, say 10-20% of people buy silver, at least 1% of the American public will buy silver. We can calculate what might happen to the silver price when that happens.
The amount of money in US Banks is about $18 trillion. 1% of that is $180 billion.
Very little silver is left; it's mostly all been consumed, so most of what is available to buy is the annual new mine supply which is 700 million ounces.
$180 billion is $180,000 million. Divide that by 700 million, and we get an implied price of $257 per ounce. Do the math yourself. I'll wait.
But that price would mean that there is no newly mined silver left over for any industrial use, and that nobody else outside of the USA could buy any of the world's newly mined silver. Clearly that can't happen; those two groups would continue to buy silver, competing to buy, and driving up the price even more.
Thus, silver is very likely to be about $500/oz., by about the time that 1% of the American public wakes up and starts to buy silver. That will be the very beginning of the bull market in silver, when measured by "popular demand" -- and at that price, silver would still be very unpopular.
Just remember these key facts, and don't let anyone, or even yourself, trick you out of this developing bull market in silver. Don't try to time the peaks, don't wait for dips, just buy and hold real silver, not any kind of paper silver promise.
What kind of annual gains will that be? Let's see, if silver goes from $30 to $500 in ten years, the compound interest rate calculator tells us that will be an average annual gain of 32.49%, which is about the same as what silver has done in the last seven years, from $4.15 to $30, which is a gain of about 32.66% per year, on average.
Oh, by the way, the 1980 high for silver was $50/oz. That was when M3, money in the banks, was about $1.8 trillion. Today, the monetary base has increased about ten times higher. Thus, the true inflation adjusted peak for silver would be $500/oz. That just further confirms this $500 estimate.
But there are many reasons why silver should surpass the former highs.
Key reasons to surpass the former 1980's peak:
1. Silver is more scarce due to 30 more years of industrial consumption.
2. Paper silver scams are more abundant.
3. Baby Boomers will be retiring, cashing out stocks and draining pension plans that have not yet invested into silver, causing other investments to vastly under perform silver, making silver ever more attractive.
4. More trend investors today will notice the silver bull market and continued gains in the silver price, and invest in it, and carry it to further highs.
5. The US government and political leaders are spending like never before, and the people, even the world over, lack the political will to control government spending which will ruin all currencies.
6. There are no "safe" currencies to run to, leaving gold and silver as the only alternatives; and gold and silver have been in bull markets in all major currencies for 10 years now.
I'm sure you can think of many other reasons, but that's enough for now.
So, the true skeptic may ask, "Yes, but this guy is a coin dealer, he's just pushing his product because he has plenty of silver he wants to dump. Besides, what kind of argument will he come up with to sell silver after it hits $500/oz.?"
Let me answer this two part question. Yes, I do have silver! I have it, because I believe that the price will go up a lot, thus, it makes perfect sense for me to carry it as inventory. I sell it, because few people are able to buy it in bulk like we can, so I use my own stash, and industry connections, to enable others to buy it.
But what will I say after silver hits $500/oz., or nears that price?
I'll say, "Obviously this bull market in silver is just getting started. Only 1% of American public money is buying silver per year. Just wait until at least 10% of US money is buying silver in a year, the price will be well over $2500 to $5000 per oz. for silver."
But I would never make that argument now. Too few people would believe me, and they would think I'm some kind of kook. And people never do business with kooks.
And what will I say when silver nears $2000/oz.?
I'll say, "Everyone knows it only costs 4 cents to print up a $100 bill, and everything returns to its intrinsic value. But used paper, particularly smelly paper, is worth even less, which is useful only for things like lining the bottom of the cages of birds, or burning in the fireplace. Thus, the price for silver will soon only be quoted in terms of gold, and certainly not quoted in terms of any kind of paper money at all." But again, I'd never say that today, everyone would think I'm crazy.

Oops. Too late for me. But it's not too late for you to buy some silver!

=====

I strongly advise you to take possession of real gold and silver, at anywhere near today's prices, while you still can. The fundamentals indicate rising prices for decades to come, and a major price spike can happen at any time.

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Setting Goals That Work

by Dave Ramsey
As a business leader or small business owner, chances are you've set a few goals in your career. You understand the importance of having a vision and goals to keep your business moving forward.

While you're establishing your goals for 2011, it's a good idea to make sure you've set goals that will work. Each goal must:
Be specific,
Be measureable,
Have a time limit,
Be yours, and
Be in writing.
Whether your goals deal with sales, income, hiring new employees, or simply losing weight, they won't work if they don't have each of these attributes.

For example, you probably want to increase sales in 2011. Great! But that goal won't work. If you want to increase sales by 10% each quarter in 2011, then that's a goal that will work. You can break that goal down into small parts and time frames, all the way down to the daily activities you need to complete to accomplish that goal—step by step.

Goals And Your Team
The EntreLeader not only establishes goals for his business, he shares those goals with his team. That's called casting a vision. It brings your team along with you in every aspect of the business. It also improves communication and unity, which are the foundations of a quality organization.

And, as you share your goals with your team, consider that many of them have never set goals for themselves—personally or professionally. Each year, Dave's team members create individual goals and share them with their leaders.

"Having my team set individual goals each year is a great way to get them motivated to succeed for themselves and the team," said Chris LoCurto, formerly Vice President of Live Events and now an EntreLeadership message-bearer.

Dave even requested that team members email him a copy of their goals, not only as a motivational tool, but because he enjoys seeing how far his team members have come based on the goals they set for themselves.

Hit Or Miss?
A couple of issues ago, we discussed the BHAG—the big, hairy, audacious goal that pushes you to achieve things you might not have thought possible. Even if you don't achieve your BHAG, the process of moving toward it is success.

All goals are like that, aren't they? If you increase your sales by 8% rather than 10%, does that make you a failure? No way! What's important is that you have a vision that moves you and your business forward, because, as Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

So make your goals, share them with your team, and encourage them to set their own goals, and you will create powerful momentum that will propel your business throughout 2011!

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