Again, I think it’s the value. I’m along the lines of Mike Maloney and others that you don’t want to focus too much on the paper price, although that’s what everyone does and rightfully so. Because if you sell metals you’re only going to get it for currency. You’re going to take that currency, and it’s either going to be a greater amount or a lesser amount than the currency you put into the investment.
You really want to look at the value, what does an ounce of silver buy historically, and what does it buy today. That is the gauge you should use to determine whether or not it’s fair valued, undervalued, or overvalued.
If you look at gold, the old adage is, of course, a fine men’s suit. You want to look at an ounce of gold, does it still do that? Or, if it buys ten suits then you might consider the fact that it’s overvalued on a historical basis.
That’s the way I’ll be looking at it more than the paper price.
I think it’s going far higher. I think you’re going to see gold overvalued and silver overvalued, and I think in an extreme way. As I just outlined, I think you’ll see where an ounce of gold doesn’t buy one fine man’s suit, it buys 10 or 50 or some extreme metric. I really think that’s where we’re going.
I think we’ll get there before ten years. I think ten years from now… I’m an optimist really. I might not sound it after I’ve been painted with the doomer broad brush, and in some cases that’d be valid. But, I’m a realist is what I am. I’m in the reality of what’s going on in the financial system. And, things are getting worse, not better, in my very studied opinion.
Regardless, I think ten years from now we could definitely be on the upswing. There are a lot of things out there, like the nanotech world, what’s going on in the energy frontier as far as being able to perhaps upgrade the system as a whole and use energy sources that are worthwhile.
I’m not talking about solar and wind. I’m not against them, but they’re really not very efficient. But other areas that might deem higher energy flex density where people have more energy available on a per capita basis, the better that is the higher living standard you have. That’s pretty easily proven.
Ten years out I’m pretty optimistic. But, I think getting to ten years out is going to be very trying over the next few. I’m looking for round numbers, if you want them.
I think $5,000 an ounce gold is probably realistic. Depending on your view of silver, if you’re super optimistic like me and you think it could follow a ten to one ratio you could use that number. Or, you think the current 50 to 1 or 60 to 1 ratio is more appropriate you could use that number.
I think we’re probably going to get to a minimum of the classic monetary ratio of 16 to 1 and as high as 10 to 1. I’ll be consistent here. I wrote about that many years ago. So, if you saw $5,000 an ounce gold then that would imply one tenth would be $500 silver.
But, let’s get past $50 again. I want to be very practical. People ask me all the time what’s the ultimate price. I say let’s be practical. Let’s see it above $26. Let’s see how it trades. Let’s get it back above $30 and see how much interest are in the metals.
I’ll go on the record as saying this. I know markets fairly well. You’re not going to see too much buying by the nonsophisticated money at these levels, unfortunately. But, what you will see once you see silver and gold work their ways higher, once you get the gold above, I don’t know, pick a level, $1,500; $1,600; $1,700, there’ll be a lot more interest in it.
And there’ll be a lot of money spent on the metals once they break to new highs. You’ll see a lot of money come into gold above the $1,900 level, and you’ll see a lot of money come into silver above the $48 level.
Unfortunately, that’s really… It’s not too late, because I think they’re going far higher than that. It’s not nearly as advantageous as buying today. But, the interest in the market today is at a low, and that’s how lows are made.
- Source, David Morgan via Sprott Money:
