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Is Silver a better Investment than Gold?

In today’s tough and unstable economic climate, precious metals like Gold and Silver are appealing investments as they are holding their value better than the paper money. With the World looming in recession, Euro zone crisis and defaulting countries, the major currencies of the World are loosing their value. Although the price of precious metals is influenced by international trends, there is no way for central banks to influence the price of metals by printing more money or buying or selling government bonds to expand or constrict money supply.

Gold has always been considered as the most preferred means of investment. It is the only metal whose prices have increased every year since last 10 years. However, when the price of Silver touched a high of almost $50 an ounce in 2011, everyone started contemplating whether silver is a better investment than Gold? While both metals tend to show growth during precious metal bull markets, silver has consistently shown the largest percentage increases during these times. For instance, between 1971 and 1981, while the dollar slowly dropped, silver increased in value nearly 5 times. At times, when gold prices have doubled, prices on silver have shown a triple rise in value while in extreme instances the price has even quadrupled. The main reason for the consistently better performance of silver compared to gold is that while both Gold and Silver are used for investments and have demand for monetary purpose, Silver also has a great demand for industrial and commercial use.

Silver is the best conductor of electricity of all the metals and hence it is used in conductors, switches, contacts and fuses. Batteries use silver to make them long-lasting.  Silver is used exclusively as a reflector in solar power cells and is the critical component that conducts the sun’s rays in solar panels into electricity. Silver is alreadybeing used in industrial brazing and soldering producing naturally smooth, leak-tight and corrosion-resistant joints. Not only is silver bactericidal, it offers a combination of high tensile strength, ductility, and thermal conductivity,

There are also a number of medical applications for silver because of ability of silver to kill the bacteria without harming the human body. It is used in wound dressings, Climate control system components, gowns, catheters, stethoscope diaphragms and other medical equipment. All hospitals treat burn victims with silver, to prevent infections. Also because of its ability to kill bacteria, silver is being used for protective coatings and water purifications and  is also finding its way into clothes and even coating mattresses, to prevent the spread of disease and bacteria,

Silver is being used in Cell phones, iPads, games consoles and will be one of the important metals used in the development of future Electronic Cars. It has always been a very widely used metal in the Jewellery industry in addition to the long-standing traditional uses of silver in photography, currency, place settings, and more.