主题：金价跌了,哪位给说说? -- 大明湖

以下是我2003年的一个小分析报告。不要太认真，仅供一笑。

Silver is an important industrial metal. The major usage of silver is industry, like electronics, photography, and jewelry & silverware. In 2002, the total demand is about 838 million ounces of silver. Industrial usage, photography usage, Jewelry & Silverware including coins and medals accounted for 40%, 25%, and 35% respectively.

World mine production of silver was 586 million ounces in 2002, with 146 M oz from pure players and 440 M oz from by-products. Scrap production was 185 million ounces in 2002.

The total deficit of silver was from 50 to200 million ounces/year from 1991 to 2002 with a peak deficit in 1997.

The gap of supply and demand was bridged by silver stocks, mostly from U.S. & Chinese governments and major exchanges in the world.

In 1990, the silver stocks worldwide are about 2.2 billion ounces. The silver stocks were about 300 million ounces worldwide at the end of 2002, according to the data from CPM Group. That means there will be no silver stocks any where in the world in several years.

The silver shortage is eminent. Investment communities are focusing on gold now. Silver is the ugly duckling forgot by investors. It will not be long before silver becomes shining again, like in 1980, as high as US $50/ounce. Taking inflation factor into account, silver price is about $100/ounce at its highest price in terms of 2003 constant U.S. dollars.

An additional benefit for silver investment compared with gold is that there are few pure plays in silver production. 75% of silver is the by-product of lead-zinc deposits or gold deposits. That means the supply of silver will not increase considerably when silver price goes up. Silver price will enjoy a price premium when facing a supply shortage.

We should go for silver. It can bring us superb investment returns and can also act as a tool to reduce portfolio risks by way of diversification.

Warren Buffet was buying silver bullion in 1997-1998. If Buffet could see the value of silver as far back as 1998, we could see the current silver price is a bargain considering the time value of money.

From the perspective of technical analysis, the long flat bottom indicated that a strong silver price upswing is just around the corner.

Silver have mostly moved in a box of $4.5/oz to $5.5/oz in the last 10 years. Now the silver price has penetrated the strong resistance at $5.5/oz, standing at $6.2/oz, the room for price upswing is really vast.

A better case is that silver normally follows the movements of gold with leverage. Currently silver is getting an extra boost from its commodity side.

Silver is a byproduct from mainly zinc mines. As such production is not very sensitive to price. As there are very few silver mine equities, there is an enormous premium in the market for silver mines.

From the financial history, we can see that we have a 1920s commodity boom.

In the 1970s, there was another commodity boom.

Now is time for the next commodity boom.

US debt/GNP is 250% in 1930, which led to a credit collapse;

Today, US debt/GNP is 300%. How far are we from another credit collapse? If so, the precious metals will become the market darlings again.