It has been a sale week for the metals, with gold down 1% to $1,927, silver down 6% to $23.36, platinum off 7% to $925, and palladium down 1% to $1,260.
From a year ago today, gold is up a solid 13%, silver is up a whopping 30%, platinum is 7% higher, and palladium is 38% lower.
eculative.
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Often, people want to know which is a better investment, gold or silver. This is an interesting question and depends on your perspective. If we look at performance numbers since the year 2000, we see that gold has averaged 9.3%, and silver has averaged 12.3% per year.
Another way to say this is silver performed 32% better than gold on average over the last 23 years.
But in terms of volatility, gold was more steady. Gold’s worst year over the period was -28%, and the best year was +31%. Silver’s worst year was -36%, and its best year was +83%.
The variance between gold’s best year and worst year was 59%, whereas with silver, it was 119%.
Gold is also more steady over longer periods of time. Since 1970, gold has averaged 10% per year, which is close to the 9.3% since 2000.
Silver has averaged 5% since 1970, which is less than half of the 12.3% since 2000. Gold is more steady, and silver is more speculative.
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byBill Stack