Gold vs. Silver [The 5 Differences That Matter Most to Investors]

You’d like to buy some precious metals, but do you buy silver or gold? Is there really much difference between them other than the price? [ View the Current Gold Price ]

Both are “precious” metals, meaning their occurrence in the earth’s crust is rare. But when it comes to investing in gold vs. silver, there are five important distinctions to be aware of. These differences can supercharge your portfolio—or make it a victim.

This article outlines the five differences to know about gold vs. silver, with special emphasis on investment implications…

Difference #1: The Silver Price is More Volatile

The total supply of new silver each year is close to 1 billion ounces. Annual gold supply is currently around 120 million ounces.

This makes it seem like the silver market is 8 times bigger than gold. But just the opposite is true, because of the huge difference in their price. Silver’s lower price makes the value of annual supply much smaller than gold’s.

At current prices, annual gold supply is 12 times bigger than silver.

Silver isn’t just smaller than gold. Look how it compares to the market cap of some popular stocks.

Each of these individual companies has a higher valuation than the entire annual supply of silver! Disney is over 15 times bigger. Apple is over 56 times larger.

This explains why silver is more volatile than gold: It takes only a relatively small amount of money to have a greater impact on its price, more than gold or most any other asset class.

As a result, silver will rise more than gold on up days, and fall more than gold on down days. There are exceptions, of course, but that’s what happens most of the time. This leads to our first…

• Investor Implication: You must be emotionally prepared for silver’s higher volatility.

It won’t do any good to buy the metal if you’ll panic and sell at the first big drop.

In fact, as an investor, this volatility can be your friend. Historically, silver has fallen more than gold in bear markets, but risen more than gold in bull markets.

 Here are some examples of how gold and silver performed during some of the biggest bull and bear markets in modern history:

You can easily see that on a percentage basis, silver rises much more than gold in bull markets, and falls much farther than gold in bear markets.

So as an investor, if you buy during a bull market, history says silver will hand you a greater return than gold. Probably by a LOT. And if you believe, like me, precious metals are beginning a new bull market…

• Investor Implication: Silver’s greater volatility means it will better perform than gold in the upcoming bull market.

The higher volatility also means that you’ll have to be more nimble when it comes time to sell. Silver will selloff faster and farther than gold, so when the bull market looks to be peaking, be sure to sell!

If you’re comfortable with the higher volatility, and buy near the beginning of a bull market, purchasing silver is like adding an extra shot of espresso to your portfolio.

Difference #2: Silver is More Affordable

This seems like an obvious statement, but the reason it’s important is because silver has many similarities with gold…

If you buy physical silver—not ETFs, certificates or futures contracts, which are paper investments—you can capture the same benefits that gold offers. Advantages that virtually no other asset provides.

Like gold, physical silver…

• Is a hard asset. Of all the investments you own, how many can you hold in your hand? In a world of paper profits, digital trading, and currency creation, physical silver is a tangible asset that can’t be hacked (something your stock broker constantly guards against).
• Is money, just like gold. It can’t be created out of thin air (and thus depreciated) like paper currency or digital entries. Look through monetary history and you’ll find that silver has been used in coinage more often than gold.
• Has no counterparty risk. If you hold physical silver, you don’t need another party to make good on a contract or promise.
• Has never been defaulted on. If you own physical silver, you have no default risk. Not so for almost any other investment you make.
• Can be as private and confidential. You must report any gain on your income tax return, but if you’d like some privacy or confidentiality with a portion of your investments, physical silver can provide it.

Silver’s advantage over gold is that you can capture all these same benefits but at a much lower cost. Your financial insurance just got more affordable. It’s why silver is called the “poor man’s gold.”

• Investor Implication: Silver is much more affordable for the average investor.

There’s another advantage to silver’s lower price: Selling…

Maybe someday you don’t want to sell a full ounce of gold to meet a small financial need. Enter silver. If you want to buy a car or any other large purchase, you’d use your gold proceeds. But if you just want groceries or a new cell phone, you can sell some silver to cover the cost of those items at the time, without being forced to liquidate your gold.

I think every investor should have some silver around for this very reason.

Investor Implication: Silver will be more practical than gold for everyday small purchases.

Last, silver’s greater affordability makes it more ideal for gifting. Want to give some precious metals as a gift? Silver just made it more affordable to do so.

So, silver is ideal for investors with small budgets, and also for any small financial needs that may come up in the future. Gold is better suited for larger purchases.

Difference #3: Silver Requires Much More Storage Space

All those affordability advantages we just outlined come with a catch: it takes a LOT more space to store silver than gold.

At current prices, the same dollar investment will get you roughly 80 more ounces of silver than gold. On top of that, most silver is a lot less dense than gold—pure silver is 84% larger in volume than pure gold. This means silver takes up as much as 128 times more space than gold for the same dollar value!

Here are some practical examples of that difference. At current prices…

• You can hold $50,000 worth of gold in one hand—but it would take about 10 large shoe boxes to hold the same dollar amount of silver.
• $50,000 worth of gold weighs about 2.6 pounds—but the same value of silver weighs about 189 pounds!
• You can store roughly $170,000 of gold in a small safe deposit box, but that same space will only hold about $2,300 of silver.

It’s relatively easy to hide some gold coins in a sock drawer or cookie jar, but those same hiding places are impractical for the same investment in silver. Whether you buy coins or bars, you’ll need a lot more space to store silver than gold.

And because it requires more space, the fees for professional storage are higher with most depositories. (However, in the case of [JC1] GoldSilver.com, the storage rate is the same for both metals: 0.06% of asset value per month, $4 minimum, a clear advantage over most storage facilities.)

This difference applies to transporting physical silver as well: it may be more difficult, expensive, and cumbersome.

Last, silver will eventually tarnish; pure gold does not. So silver coins and bars must be stored in a dry place with no exposure to the elements, a concern you don’t have with gold.

• Investor Implication: Gold takes up much less storage space than silver, is cheaper to store, is lighter and less cumbersome to transport, and doesn’t tarnish.

It takes a little more strategizing on your part to store silver than gold. But there are definitely ways to do it, as this article shows.

Difference #4: Silver Has Higher Industrial Use

About 12% of gold supply goes to industrial uses. But due to silver’s unique characteristics, a whopping 56% of its supply is used in industry. Silver has so many applications that believe it or not, you don’t go one day without using a product that contains it.

From electronics and medical applications, to batteries and solar panels, silver is everywhere, whether you see it or not.

As Mike Maloney says in his book, “Of all the elements, silver is the indispensable metal. It is the most electronically conducive, thermally conductive, and reflective. Modern life, as we know it, would not exist without silver.”

Why is this important? Because the state of the global economy can have a greater impact on silver demand than gold. Silver is thus more susceptible to economic booms and busts.

• Investor Implication: Demand for industrial uses of silver is high in a strong economy, and weaker in a recession or deflation.

But that’s only part of the story… unlike gold, most industrial silver is consumed and then thrown away (and in some cases destroyed during the fabrication process). It’s just not economic to recover every tiny flake or grain of silver from most products. As a result, when the product gets discarded, that silver is gone for good. This limits the amount of silver that can return to the market through recycling.

• Investor Implication: Unlike gold, millions of ounces of silver are lost every year. New supply must keep up in order to meet demand.

But won’t the silver price fall in a recession or any serious economic slowdown?

Fair question. Let’s take a quick look at a one of the worst economic periods in modern history and see what happened…

It’s hard to imagine a worse economic environment than the 1970s, especially the second half of that decade: two recessions, a 14% inflation rate, high unemployment, an energy crisis, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and ongoing cold war tensions. As for silver itself, industrial demand fell, and global supply rose. Does this sound like an environment where the silver price would rise?

 Not at all. But it did:

The reason the silver price rose so much was actually because of those issues. Investors bought silver to help shield their portfolios from all the turmoil at the time. And on top of it they earned a stunning return on their investment.

• Investor Implication: During a monetary or financial crisis, silver’s role as money has historically had more impact on its price than its role in industry.

The one economic situation where silver may not do well, at least initially, is a deflationary depression. Something like the Great Depression. However, keep in mind that in dire circumstances such as that, governments and central bankers are likely to institute highly inflationary policies to keep the economy afloat—the very policies that would serve as a launching pad for silver due to its safe haven status.

Difference #5: Silver Stockpiles are Falling, Gold’s are Rising

This difference may not seem to have immediate importance to an investor, but it’s a behind-the-scenes development that could potentially have big consequences in certain circumstances.

Governments and other institutions used to hold large inventories of silver. Today, however, most of them no longer have stockpiles of the metal. In fact, the only countries that warehouse silver are the US, India, and Mexico.

Look what’s happened to those inventories since 1970.

The primary reason governments don’t hold a lot of silver is because it’s no longer used in coinage. But as we outlined above, silver is used in industry to a much greater degree now… so if future industrial needs rise, or the supply chain were interrupted, governments will be ill-equipped to support those needs.

In contrast, central banks hold over 34,000 tonnes (1.09 billion ounces) of gold in official Reserves. And on a net basis, they continue buying every year. These ongoing purchases contribute to the overall demand for the metal.

This source of demand isn’t present for silver. However, it does put the silver market in a precarious position. If the need for physical silver were to suddenly increase—a monetary crisis, a shortage in industrial supply, a spike in investment demand—governments won’t be able to meet these needs with such tiny stockpiles.

• If governments started to buy silver for any reason, it would have a huge impact on the market—demand would spike, and the price would skyrocket.

 This scenario may or may not play out, but it’s a delicate position that could have a deep and immediate impact on the silver market.

5 Major Distinctions Between Gold and Silver