Gold -to-Silver Price Ratio Falls Below 30-Year Low

With the price of silver soaring faster than gold, the gold-silver price ratio has plunged below its 1983 low of 31.97. The gold-to-silver price ratio, defined as the price of an ounce of gold divided by the price of an ounce of silver, closed Wednesday (April 27, 2011) at 31.93. This means an ounce of gold is now less than 32 times more expensive than an ounce of silver.

Just four weeks ago, on March 31, 2011, the gold-to-silver price ratio was 37.98 when an ounce of gold was nearly 38 times more expensive than an ounce of silver.

• Gold ETF GLD Charts and Quote
• Silver ETF SLV Charts and Quote

Read my full Seeking Alpha article with more charts at:

• Gold / Silver Price Ratio Just Below 30-Year Low

Current Holdings: Personally, I own a very small amount of gold and silver hidden in the house for bribes if we see Armageddon. I also own silver and gold coins mostly as a collector but they would serve as currency in a disastere. For inflation protection, I own individual TIPS "treasury inflation protected securities" and Series I-Bonds. I recently sold my managed TIPS mutual funds (FINPX and VIPSX) after the recent surge in TIPS had the spread for the 5-year near record negative lows and used some of the funds to buy a new, individual TIPS with a positive return relative to inflation.  If the base rate for 5-year TIPS returns to a positive level, I may buy the TIPS ETF TIP rather than the managed funds I recently sold.

To best prepare for Armageddon, I own a

• MSR MiniWorks EX Microfilter

MSR MiniWorks EX Microfilter

I can use this to make drinking water from all the swimming pools and hot tubs near me plus the creek around the corner.  I can then trade the drinking water for food and fuel if my extra supplies in my "earthquake kit" run out.

Full List of Kirk Lindstrom's Articles at Seeking Alpha

• ECRI's WLI at 42 Week High: 'Get While the Getting Is Good'
  
  
•  Global Inflation Pressure Rising: How to Profit

Gold/Silver Price Ratio Plunges Below 27-Year Low

Update 7/29/13:

• Jim Cramer's "Action Alerts Plus" Charitable Trust Portfolio Performance: 2013

With silver prices continuing to make new highs while gold has not made a new high, the gold:silver price ratio plunged to a new low dating back to 1983!

The gold-to-silver price ratio, defined as the price of an ounce of gold divided by the price of an ounce of silver, closed Monday at 37.99. This means an ounce of gold is now less than 40 times more expensive than an ounce of silver.

Charts of the gold-to-silver price ratio, GLD, SLV, Gold and Silver prices plus the rest of my Seeking Alpha article at:

• As Gold/Silver Price Ratio Continues Plunge, What to Purchase

Current Holdings: Personally, I own a very small amount of gold hidden in the house for bribes if we see Armageddon. I also own silver coins for a similar purpose. For inflation protection, I own individual TIPS "treasury inflation protected securities" and Series I-Bonds. I recently sold my managed TIPS mutual funds (FINPX and VIPSX) after the recent surge in TIPS had the spread for the 5-year near record negative lows.  If the base rate for 5-year TIPS returns to a positive level, I may buy the TIPS ETF TIP rather than the managed funds I recently sold.


To best prepare for Armageddon, I own a

• MSR MiniWorks EX Microfilter

MSR MiniWorks EX Microfilter

I can use this to make drinking water from all the swimming pools and hot tubs near me plus the creek around the corner.  I can then trade the drinking water for food and fuel if my extra supplies in my "earthquake kit" run out.

.



Full List of Kirk Lindstrom's Articles at Seeking Alpha

• ECRI's WLI at 42 Week High: 'Get While the Getting Is Good'
  
•  Global Inflation Pressure Rising: How to Profit

Gold to Silver Price Ratio Near Multi-Decade Lows

The gold-to-silver price ratio, defined as the price of an ounce of gold divided by the price of an ounce of silver, closed Wednesday at 45.16 This means an ounce of gold is just over forty five times more expensive than an ounce of silver.

Charts of the gold-to-silver price ratio, GLD, SLV, Gold and Silver prices plus the rest of my Seeking Alpha article at:

Gold / Silver Price Ratio Near Multi-Decade Lows

As my chart shows, twenty years ago in 1991, gold was over 100 times more expensive than silver. Since then, the gold-to-silver price ratio never went below 41.51.

Jim Rogers Expects Inflation; He's Long Silver and Short Long Term Treasuries

Jim Rogers says he expects the actions by governments around the globe to save their economies will cause inflation and crash the US dollar. As such, Rogers is short long-term US Treasuries (US Treasury Rates at a Glance) and long silver.

Rogers has a good long-term record. For one, he has been short the banking stocks this past year as they have crashed and burned. Rogers was also a co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund. " During Roger's ten years with the fund, the portfolio gained more than 4,000%, while the S&P rose less than 50%.

Today "Business Intelligence - Middle East" reported in "Jim Rogers says get rid of dollars, buy silver " the following quotes from Rogers speaking to a group of private bank clients:

• "The fact that the dollar is gaining rapidly is only temporary"
• "Within a year you'll have to get rid of the dollar"
  

Rogers also said US government bonds are extremely overvalued.

• "They are "the world's last bubble."

Rogers explained that government economic rescue plans will force governments to issue more debt, print money and flood the markets with liquidity which will flare up inflation after the crisis is over and create worse problems.

Rogers says "zombie banks" kept alive by Paulson and Bernanke should be allowed to fail. He compared it to Japan which refused to let banks fail in the 1990s.

• "It's 18 years later and their stock market is 75% or 80% below what it was 18 years ago"
• "I know we are going to get aggressive rate cuts everywhere, that's why I'm long short-term government bonds in the US, but shorting long-term government bonds because it's not going to help, it's going to add to inflation."
  

Rogers expects investors to return to precious metals as a hedge against inflation.

• “Silver will do better than gold. It’s been beaten down horribly. If you put a gun to my head and said you have to buy one, I would buy silver rather than gold.”

Rogers think gold may fall as central banks and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sell the metal to raise cash.

• “The IMF has gigantic amounts of gold. Maybe gold is going to go down for a while. If gold does go down, I’m going to buy more.”

Another way to hedge against high inflation is to buy TIPS or Treasury Inflation Protected Securities.

I recently bought Vanguard's TIPS fund (VIPSX Charts) which, like Silver, is down about 30% from its peak set earlier this year. As I describe on page 9 of the November 2008 issue of "Kirk Lindstrom's Investment Newsletter," I like to triple diversify the fixed income side of my asset allocation into

1. Bond funds that do well when rates fall,
   
2. Cash, CD and Treasury-Bill ladders, Money Funds and quality short-term bond funds for current income
3. I-Bonds and TIPS for inflation protection.
   

By having three fixed income buckets, I can rebalance after one of the buckets has a period of out performance. For more on that strategy, see " Using Asset Allocation to make money in a Flat Market."

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For more, see:

• US Treasury Rates at a Glance
  
  
• World Stock Markets at a Glance
  
  
• ECRI WLI Growth Rate Plunge Continues to New Record Low
  
  
• Best 1-Year CD Rates with FDIC
  
  
• I-Bond and Series EE Bond Rates for November 2008