As the world economy continues to struggle, and new tax regulations set about to seek and destroy the haven advantages traditionally enjoyed with offshore accounts, the topic often turns to the best way to protect your assets. Physical, tangible objects are certainly more quantifiable when it comes to value – as opposed to a certificate issued from a financial institution or even paper currency. Certificates and paper currency suffer devaluation and a fluctuating exchange rate dependent on the performance of any one or more global economic power or entity. Precious metals, however, are another entirely different creature.
Gold is an obvious choice for investment: it has been used as a currency and as the backing for investments for thousands of years. Silver, though, has it’s own special advantages (and a few disadvantages, too). The price of silver has been historically somewhat volatile – a kind way of saying silver is all over the map in terms of value. Even though it’s difficult to predict how any investment is going to perform in the future, silver has gone up in value and experts seem to believe it will continue an upward trend.
Silver began receiving attention of many seasoned investors not because of how its performed in the past but for how it looks like its going to perform in the future. Even though gold has also gathered additional interest as an investment in recent years, there are several key differences between silver and gold. The main difference is use: gold is primarily stored for value reasons; silver is used heavily in industry. Every day silver is used to make advanced tech products in India, China, Taiwan and Vietnam – all countries with rapidly developing infrastructures. For this reason it is almost assured the price of silver is going to continue to go up if not at an accelerated pace.
Another plus silver has as an investment grade precious metal is that it is a rare earth metal. There is a limited supply of silver to be had in the world and it cannot be produced through any other process. As the silver deposits currently being mined begin to run out it’s value is going to rise as a naturally occurring result. Combined with its use in the rapidly growing high tech industries and infrastructures of the Asian continent, the value of silver begins to become quite evident. It is also an easily-understood investment in that when you buy silver you are purchasing a real, physical object and not just a piece of paper representing something. It is possible to buy silver bullion, coins and ingots but it all as a real, placed value.
Now is the best time to purchase silver if you are going to. Prices are going to continue to rise as the use of silver grows in industry and developing nations use it more and more. It would make an excellent, long-term investment, even if there is a small to moderate drop in value within the next few years. A small or moderate drop in value in the short run might even make it a better investment since you’ll be able to buy more with less. Anyone seeking diversity in their offshore holdings needs to seriously consider silver as a viable option.
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