Hi ho silver! Metal favored by Main Street in 2020
New York (Dec 27) Main Street investors are keeping the faith in silver. For the fourth straight year, silver was voted as the metal most likely to outperform the other precious metals and copper during the year ahead.
This year, 1,820 people participated in an Outlook 2020 online survey. A total of 794 Main Street voters, or 44%, said they expect silver to fare better than other metals in the year ahead.
Gold came in second place, with 526 votes, or 29%. Another 213 of the survey respondents, or 12%, favored platinum. Voters cast 178 ballots, or 10%, in favor of copper.
Palladium garnered only 109 votes, or 6%. That was the same percentage as a year ago. Of course, palladium confounded voters in 2019, posting a 50% rise so far this year and touching $2,000 an ounce for the first time ever.
“Silver is the most beat-down metal of them all; just look at the chart,” said one Kitco reader. “It’s found its btm [bottom] and only one way to go -- up! Palladium is in a blow-off parabolic move, which is going to end badly for people buying it right now.”
As of Thursday, the gold-silver ratio stood at a historically high 84.5, meaning it takes 84.5 ounce of silver to buy an ounce of gold. A high number means underperformance by silver, and vice-versa.
A number of Wall Street analysts told Kitco News in recent weeks that they see potential for silver to outperform gold.
"Over the last few years, investment for silver and gold disconnected quite a bit,” said TD Securities strategist Daniel Ghali. “Over the last few months, however, there have been signs that the correlation of investment activity for both metals has turned positive again. We are optimistic on the prospect for gold, but we think it will pay off more for those who…purchase silver. We think the industrial demand side of the equation will improve later in the year."
Added Phillip Streible, senior market strategist with RJO Futures: "The ratio between gold and silver will continue to crack lower, favoring silver and taking away from gold. Silver will take from some of the other metals like platinum and palladium, and the trade deal will help boost the technology demand for silver.”
The tally in favor of silver for 2020 is comparable to a year ago, when 43% of voters said that they expected silver will be the top performer in 2019. Gold was second place in the year-ago vote with 34% of the voters. Copper, palladium and platinum drew 12%, 6% and 5% of the vote, respectively.
In terms of actual performance through the end of trading Thursday, palladium had soared 50% so far in 2019, while platinum was the second-best performer with a 19% gain. Gold and silver were right behind at 18% and 16%. Copper had a year-to-date gain of 9%.
KitcoNews
