Silver demand was up 4% and hit a three-year high in 2018, according to the 2019 World Silver Survey released by the Silver Institute this week.
Physical demand for silver came in at over 1 billion ounces last year.
Meanwhile, silver mine production fell for the third straight year, dropping 2% in 2018 to 855.7 million ounces.
While investors often treat gold as a commodity, at its core, gold is money. Silver also has a long history as a monetary metal. But what about other rare metals? Could they serve as money as well?
In the following guest column, SchiffGold client Antony Pouros makes the case for platinum.
How are all of these unprofitable companies staying afloat and even making big splashes with media-hyped IPOs?
Peter Schiff addressed this question, along with the supposed “failure” of capitalism in his most recent podcast.
Central bank gold purchases hit a level not seen since 2008 through the first two months of 2019.
Central banks added 90 tons of gold in the first two months of this year according to the latest report by the World Gold Council. This compares to 56 tons through the first two months of 2018 and ranks as the highest rate of growth since 2008.
The net worth of the US comes in at negative $21.5 trillion.
This according to the Financial Report of the United States Government recently released by the Treasury Department.
China bought gold for the fourth straight month in March, adding another 11.2 tons of the yellow metal to its reserves, according to the latest data released by the People’s Bank of China.
With the most recent purchases, the Chinese official gold reserves stand at about 1,884 tons or 60.62 million ounces. The Chinese have been adding gold to their reserves over the last several months as they continue to minimize exposure to the US dollar.
The “Powell Pause” is not enough. President Donald Trump not only wants interest rates cuts; he wants to put quantitative easing back in play.
During an interview Friday, the president once again complained about the Fed’s 2018 interest rate increases, saying “they really slowed us down.” Trump wants stimulus and called on the Fed to resume Obama era QE.
Total gold holdings in ETFs grew marginally in March, resuming an upward trend that started last fall. Total holdings of the yellow metal globally rose 3 tons, with increases seen in every region, according to the most recent data released by the World Gold Council.
ETFs worldwide currently hold 2,483 tons of gold valued at approximately $103 billion.
In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap, Mike Maharrey covers some more bad signs in the economy, including rising oil prices, an unexpected drop in retail sales and a surge in negative-yielding government bonds. At best, it looks like the economy is slowing down. Or it could be the prelude to the next crisis. This raises an important question: who’s going to save us? Mike suggests we probably shouldn’t be counting on the politicians or the central bankers.
In the March 8 episode of the SchiffGold Friday Gold Wrap podcast, Mike Maharrey emphasized the importance of understanding sound economic theory. And as economist Frank Shostak explained, facts and figures aren’t enough to digest what’s going on in the economy.
In order to really make sense of the data one must have a theory, which stands on its own feet, and did not originate from the data. By means of a theory, one could scrutinize the data and could then try to make sense out of it.”
In a recent article published on the Mises Wire, economist Dr. Thorsten Polleit builds on this body of knowledge, explaining how central bank manipulations of interest rates not only distort the economy, the actually mess with our minds.
