Expert Opinion: Is Silver to Outshine Gold in 2021?

GA News

35 minutes read

May 5, 2021

Experts share their forecast for the gold and silver price for 2021

Leading experts share valuable insights into the precious metal market expressing their optimism on the 2021 outlook for both gold and silver.

Krishan Gopaul and Michael DiRienzo, the senior experts from the World Gold Council and The Silver Institute, have joined our CEO Alessandro Soldati in a discussion on the prospects for gold and silver in 2021.

First, here are some key takeaways:

🟡 Key takeaways for gold in 2021:

  • On average, around 149 billion euros worth of gold was traded per day in 2020. That is across the spots, OTC derivatives, and futures contracts.
  • If you look at the data from 1971 when gold became free-floating, gold returned on average about 11% in US dollar terms every year.
  • When there is high inflation, gold historically performs incredibly well. You shouldn’t start planning for your risk management during a crisis, it should be something that you do long in advance.

🔵 Key takeaways for silver in 2021:

  • Last year, silver had a price gain of about 27%, further increase is expected this year.
  • Physical demand for silver was extraordinarily strong last year, to the extent that it was impossible to get a coin or a bar at some points during the year.

To make it easier to navigate the video, here’s the full list of topics discussed:

01:13 - 04:23 - Why have gold allocation in your portfolio?
04:40 - 07:04 - Why have silver allocation in your portfolio?
07:17 - 11:41 - What are the production and demand for silver?
11:42 - 15:59 - What are the production and demand for gold?
16:47 - 19:59 - Gold trading and EFP.
20:05 - 23:40 - What happened during the #SilverSqueeze?
26:14 - 29:08 - What is the 2021 outlook for gold?
29:08 - 31:59 - What is the 2021 outlook for silver?
32:00 - Q&A Session

Below are shorter videos focusing on each subject:

1. Why have a gold allocation in your portfolio?

  • It gives good returns: if you look at the data from 1971, when gold became free-floating, you can actually see the yellow metal returned on average about 11% in US dollar terms every year.
  • It's a reliable portfolio diversifier.
  • It’s incredibly liquid.

ALESSANDRO: Why someone needs to consider having a gold allocation in his portfolio? Krishan, let's start with gold.

KRISHAN: Thank you, Alessandro, and thank you for inviting me here today. It's a very good question and one that we kind of address often when we speak to clients and institutional investors in the market. So the big question is why have an allocation to gold? Well, there are three key points that I would like to make. The first is returns. Many investors see that gold has no yield, it pays no dividend, it pays no coupon like a bond or a stock, and because of this they assume that it has no return, and that's not the case. If you look at the data from 1971 when gold became free-floating, we actually see that gold returned on average about 11% in US dollar terms every year, so it's certainly something that can assist with the returns over the longer period and that's actually in line with many commodities and stock indices that we've seen over a very similar period.

The second point I'd like to make is diversification. Most investors agree that diversification is important when making their investments and risk management but effective diversifiers are actually quite difficult to find. When the market stresses and uncertainty increases we find that correlations tend to increase, which means that assets tend to move together but gold stands apart from other assets in this respect. In that it tends to have a negative correlation, say, to equities and that negative correlation actually becomes even stronger the further the equities tend to drop. So it tends to produce that portfolio protection exactly when investors need it.

The final point is liquidity. Now, gold is an incredibly large and global market and because of that it's incredibly liquid. So on average, gold traded around 149 billion euros per day over 2020 and that's across spots and OTC derivatives, and futures contracts. If we add gold-backed ETFs to that that's an additional source of liquidity. So what does that mean? Well, it means that the scale and the depth of the gold market can accommodate very large institutional buy and hold investors, and it also means that in times of crisis that liquidity does not tend to dry up, so it means that that makes gold a far less volatile asset than many other diversifiers you may see out there. So those are some of the key reasons why we make the argument that gold can bring a benefit to a portfolio and how a strategic allocation can actually help improve risk-adjusted returns.

  

2. Why have a silver allocation in your portfolio?

  • It's a good portfolio diversifier.
  • The demand for silver is growing: in 2020, over 331 million ounces of silver were
    allocated into global ETPs, and physical demand for the metal was extraordinarily strong.

ALESSANDRO: And Michael, what about silver?

MICHAEL: Sure, well first of all again thank you, Alessandro and Krishan, it's a pleasure to be on this webinar with you. We appreciate the opportunity to talk about the white metal, it being silver. So silver, like gold, has been an investment and a treasure commodity for centuries and, you know, if you just take last year, for example, and, going on some of the three points that Krishan illustrated - you know, diversification of a portfolio is certainly one reason why somebody will hold a hard asset such as silver. The silver market is not quite as liquid as the gold market but a good liquidity does exist in the market today.

There are some that are arguing that that may not be the case and we could talk about that a little bit later on with respect to the silver squeeze we saw earlier this year, but if you look at silver's performance in 2020, in a year that most commodity markets and most markets, in general, were severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, it was the investment in silver that led to the price gains. We had a price gain last year of about 27%, and this year we're expecting even a greater price gain. When you look at the investment into ETPs, for example, it was a record here: over 331 million ounces of silver were allocated into global ETPs. Physical demand was extraordinarily strong, you couldn't really get a coin or a bar at some points during the year.

It was due to the strong demand but more and so it was due to the supply chains being interrupted and disrupted, and the manufacturing process is not able to keep up with the pace of demand. So, we look at those factors, we feel very confident that 2021 is going to be a good year. But you also have to focus on some of these extraordinary fiscal and monetary positions in an era of record debt accumulation through various governments across the world. So we feel that this year in particular, and even going forward beyond this year, it should be a healthy environment for silver investment.

 

3. What are the production and demand for silver?

  • Only about 27% of silver comes from a primary silver mine each year.
  • In 2020, industrial demand made up over 50% of the total global demand for silver.
  • Silver’s photovoltaic demand and its use in renewable energy are expected to grow to about 105 million ounces this year.

ALESSANDRO: But just to have an idea of what is the precious metals' production and demand in silver. How much silver comes from mine production, how much silver comes from recycling? Because we know that in precious metals the recycling is quite a large percentage of the supply, and how is the demand structured?

MICHAEL: So if you look at last year, for example, and we just recently put out last week our World Silver Survey 2021 that you can download at no cost from our website, last year was the fourth consecutive year of a decline in mine supply. We expect that's going to turn around this year.

And last year's situation was really due to the fact that most of these or many of these mines and in very important silver mining countries like Peru and Mexico and others were on Covid restrictions and could not operate, so we saw the fourth year of mine supply, we saw a slight increase in recycling of silver as the price got higher, people were turning their silver products for a price, and then you got a very small amount of net hedging supply, and then on the other supply side issue, which used to be a more important issue back in early 2000-2003, government sales of silver were almost minimal last year, and on the demand sector, we saw...

ALESSANDRO: Do you have an idea, in terms of amount in million of ounces, of what it looks like, the supply of silver?

MICHAEL: Total supply last year was a little over a billion ounces so 1.056 billion ounces of silver was the total supply dynamic that came to the market.

ALESSANDRO: So this is more or less 30,000 tons of silver if I'm not wrong? More or less? I did the calculations. Okay, so 30,000 tons, so more or less one billion ounces of silver, and then the demand - how is it structured?

MICHAEL: So 1.033 billion ounces, so just shy of the total supply.

ALESSANDRO: As I said before, we have industrial demand, we have the jewelry, we have the physical investment, so I think these are the three main points someone has to know when they are seeing the supply and demand in precious metals. What is the percentage of the demand that goes into industrial demand?

MICHAEL: It's over 50%. Last year, I believe, it was 55%. This year we're calling for an even higher number.

ALESSANDRO: It’s a huge amount.

MICHAEL: That's the industrial side, and then, when you add the investment side into the equation as well we believe jewelry and silverware are also going to pick up this year, but that's coming off of a very low 2020.

ALESSANDRO: I did some research, so we know that we have more than 50% that goes in the industrial demand, then we have 25% in the jewelry and silverware, and then we have more or less 25% on the physical investment, and I know also that Indian demand is huge compared to the worldwide demand. And now we are seeing, sadly, that Covid is at an all-time high in India, so I think even the demand is not at its maximum grade in India regarding all the jewelry and silverware, right?

MICHAEL: That's correct, and when it comes to jewelry and silverware, India is such an important country to the global demand sector for those two demand areas - jewelry and silverware - and you know, if you took India out of the equation last year, silver would have had a fairly good year with respect to jewelry. We're hopeful that those markets and that country itself will get back on track, and they could slowly start putting, like some of the world has, this pandemic a little bit at ease.

MICHAEL (cont'd): It's important to note on silver that only about 27% comes from a primary silver mine each year. So newly mined silver activity is coming from a very small output - less than 30% of a primary silver mine, and it really does rely on lead, copper, gold, and zinc mining activities to make up the difference and that's the point I forgot to put in.

ALESSANDRO: It's very very interesting, I was not aware that silver is coming from other mines, so not silver primary from silver mines but other mines that is a secondary material that they are mining, very interesting.

 

4. What are the production and demand for gold?

  • Between 4,000 - 5,000 tons of gold are brought to the market every year, about 75% of that comes from mine production. The remaining 25% come from recycled sources.
  • Jewelry and technology account for about 40% of annual demand.

ALESSANDRO: And what about gold, Krishan? So we know that the share from industrial demand for silver is huge, so more than 50%. What about gold in industrial demand and compared to silver, what is the production of gold each year?

KRISHAN: So it's a very good question and something we talk about quite a lot is gold's dual nature and by that we mean, or we describe the market as being self-balancing and that's due to the different elements of demand that we see, and it's really key to understanding gold’s diversification benefits and its potential as a source of long-term returns.

The way that the market is structured is, on the demand side, we tend to have jewelry and technology which account for about 40% of annual demand. They're the kind of elements that are linked to economic expansion, they're pro-cyclical. So as incomes go up, we tend to see demand for gold jewelry and technology, which contain gold components, increase. So that's supportive of demand.

Now, the other major category for gold demand is investment, which counts for about 42% of demand, and particularly identifiable investment, the kind of gold investment that we can measure, and this – while an element of it will be pro-cyclical with demand for small bars and coins from retail investors in periods of economic expansion – this tends to be mostly responsive to risk and uncertainty.

So, as we saw last year, and I'm sure we saw in silver, it's that as the Covid pandemic took hold, as we see greater levels of risk of uncertainty in the market, safe-haven demand will come in from the investment side, we will see investment into products from the institutional side, so last year we saw record levels of inflows into gold-backed ETFs globally. I think, in the region of eight to 900 tons and so it really shows that there are different drivers to gold demand on any particular year, some are pro-cyclical, some are counter-cyclical and because of that it brings an added level of stability to gold demand and the gold market more widely.

Now, on the supply side, we see between four to five thousand tons of gold brought to the market every year. Now, about 75 % of that tends to be from mine production. So that's gold freshly dug out of the ground where the remaining 25% is from recycled sources. So recycling is a huge component of the supply side for gold which helps bring a nice balance to the supply side. When we see that demand is far higher than we might have expected or the price increases, that will help draw out some of that recycled stock and help kind of maintain that balance within the market between the demand/supply data sectors.

ALESSANDRO: And do you think, is mine production stable or not, because at the end of the day, the mine production is the inflation on the gold supply, you know, so is the mine production decreasing, increasing in the last, I don't know, five years?

KRISHAN: So, we tend to see over the last five to ten years that gold mining has been increasing between one to two percent every year. Last year was a bit of an outlier for the reasons that Mike kind of explained, that Covid obviously had a big impact in terms of the demand and. On the supply side, we saw similarly kind of impacts on mine production with temporary closures of mines in certain jurisdictions which impacted the overall annual figure or annual level of mine production. That we saw last year but gold mining has been remarkably stable. And if you think that it's mined on every continent, bar Antarctica, that kind of geographic dispersion again brings a level of stability - where you see impacts in one jurisdiction it won't severely impact the overall level of global mine supply that we see.

 

5. Gold trading and EFP

  • The global gold supply is incredibly resilient. There was no severe disruption to the wider gold market, given the level of damage the global Covid-19 pandemic caused when it first took hold.

ALESSANDRO: Krishan, regarding the gold EFPs that we saw last April. So, EFP - an exchange for physical, it's kind of a future, a contract when you're buying gold in a second moment, I'm more or less right?

KRISHAN: The exchange for physical was for all intents and purposes representing the difference between delivering gold in London versus New York. Now, Mike earlier mentioned that last year because of Covid we experienced disruption to the global gold supply as we did in silver. And what that meant was actually moving gold physically from location to location, so London to New York, was incredibly difficult.

We wrote a paper on that last year which kind of delved into the details where we saw a reduced number of commercial flights which often is used to transport gold, disruption at refineries or mints which again kind of caused problems and disruptions in the entire supply chain which kind of led to that growing
discrepancy in the exchange of physical which we did indeed see blow out kind of in March - April last year, but since has come down to much more normal levels.

And I think what that shows is that the global gold supply at least is incredibly resilient. I think the disruption did last for a couple of months but certainly, things got back on track and there was no severe disruption to the wider gold market which you might expect, given the level of disruption that the pandemic caused when it first kind of took hold.

ALESSANDRO: So to explain to the audience - discrepancy is the premium on the physical exchange of products compared to the spot price of the metals, right?

KRISHAN: So it's a comparison between the spot price in London versus the futures price we get in New York. So the difference because of that… The difficulty of moving physical gold from one location to the other caused that difference which ordinarily should be quite small because otherwise you'd create an arbitrage kind of blew out representing those difficulties in the supply and movement of gold.

ALESSANDRO: Do you think this is a dynamic that will return or not in the near future? The fact that we have a huge premium regarding the physical product.

KRISHAN: Well, I think it's difficult to say, I think we're looking at more recent data that doesn't appear to be the case and I don't certainly think that where we are in the pandemic right now is anywhere near where we were when this first took hold last year. So I don't foresee that happening. I think what we're seeing at the moment with potential increased premiums is potentially slight kind of bottlenecks in supply but a very very small level ordinarily. Overall, I think we're seeing that the gold market is functioning very very smoothly.

 

6. What happened during the #SilverSqueeze?

  • The Reddit-based squeeze pushed investors to buy silver across all areas, including retail and institutional.
  • “These are passionate investors, they come from all food groups, from all over the world, and they're here to stay.

ALESSANDRO: Everyone is asking right now regarding the silver squeeze - what is happening, what happened in February when, if I'm not wrong, in three days we had a demand of 4,000 tons of ETP. So these famous exchange-traded products. Maybe you can tell a little bit more what happens, what exactly is an ETP or just to let the audience understand what we were talking about?

MICHAEL: So ETPs, you know, really came onto the market, exchange-traded products, some call them exchange-traded funds for the silver side. In 2006, when then Barclays launched the i-Shares product, which has since been bought by BlackRock, and a whole host of others have arisen based in various regions throughout the world and suited to particular types of investors. I mentioned earlier that over 331 million ounces of silver went to ETPs in 2020, and this year we're starting off very very well. These are both institutional but they're also retailer, retail investors and we think that we're going to get about 150 million ounces of silver into ETPs, and historically that is a rather high number for overall demand for this investment product.

They're going very very strong, as I mentioned, earlier in the year, we all are aware of what is now called the silver squeeze, and on social media platforms, primarily on Reddit, with the hashtag #silversqueeze and hashtag #wallstreetsilver. I can tell you quite frankly, from the institute's perspective, we saw our Twitter followers increase almost 100%, number of last year to where we are today, and the thing that's unique about that, but not terribly unique, the thing is sort of interesting about that is these folks are passionate about silver and they're passionate about all aspects of the metal.

And they feel in some respects that the metals being short-changed that there's manipulation of the market and, you know, we believe that regulators across the world have done a fairly good job in catching the bad actors and we know there have been bad actors in recent history and they've been caught and banks are paying fines, individuals are paying fines, and some people may even see jail time as a result. But this Reddit-based squeeze fuelled investors buying across all arenas, both retail and institutional, and it wasn't just ETPs. It was demand for physical as well, so it's had a lasting effect on silver investment if you look at the price performance of the metal this year.

While they have retraced someone from somewhat from the $30 high, they're still very very strong when you compare them over a 10-year time frame as we exited the first quarter of the year. We think that investor appetite for the metal has remained healthy and is more or less consistent with early February, even though the numbers are not as high, but as I mentioned, these are passionate investors, they come from all food groups, from all over the world and they're here to stay.

 

7. What is the 2021 outlook for gold?

  • The outlook for gold for the rest of 2021 is “very supportive.”
  • The World Gold Council expects to see an increased consumer demand for jewelry, technology, bars, and coins.

ALESSANDRO: Regarding the outlook for gold in 2021, what is the view of the World Gold Council for the rest of the year?

KRISHAN: So it's another great question, so I would point to the overall environment that we've seen. So, much of the news this year has been on rising treasury yields or sovereign yields we've seen it in the US, we've seen it in Europe. But I think it's important to emphasize that interest rates still remain structurally low, we are still very much in a low rate environment and that has impacted investors, they have been forced to rethink traditional asset allocations and strategies, and there's just been a general hunt for yield with bonds being able to provide less with dividends having been cut last year and under pressure still.

That has boosted the interest in gold because of the opportunity cost as interest rates stay lower the opportunity cost of holding gold becomes a lot smaller. We're also seeing high market valuations for equities, for example, we're seeing headlines of continuous high valuations of reaching record all-time highs, so I think as well because of the levels where we are there's always that potential that we may see equity market corrections and a kind of prudent risk management would be to kind of make sure your portfolio is kind of protected against that potential risk.

Finally, I would also say that we've seen, as a result of the Covid pandemic, tremendous amounts of fiscal and monetary stimulus, we've seen ballooning budget deficits from governments across the world, we've seen growing levels of the money supply, and all of that combined with the low interest rates kind of creates a kind of a much greater level of inflationary pressures. And again, historically, we've seen that when there is equity market pullbacks, when there is high inflation gold historically performs incredibly well, so I think the outlook for gold, the environment is still relatively strong, it's conducive to having an allocation to gold for prudent risk management. And we would say that you don't look to start planning for your risk management during a crisis, it should be something that you do long in advance, so I think the outlook for gold for the rest of 2021 is still very supportive.

I would finally add also is the economic expansion point I made earlier that, too, is supportive for gold that, you know, should we see a continued economic recovery from the pandemic, from here on in, we should hopefully see a response from consumer demand so jewelry, technology and some elements of bar and coin, we should also be boosted by that as well.

 

8. What is the 2021 outlook for silver?

  • The use of silver in photovoltaics and automotive vehicles will continue to grow.
  • The Silver Institute predicts that, by 2025, silver's annual use will be about 80-85 million ounces.

ALESSANDRO: I imagine, Michael, since we always say that silver is gold on steroid, you're more or less aligned with the outlook of gold?

MICHAEL: We are indeed, and, you know, since silver you know is both an investment and an industrial metal, we think that as these vaccinations start to spread and people are taking them across the global economies, we think that industry is going to pick up. I noted that in a speech I gave last Friday that the international monetary fund is calling for a six percent increase in global GDP for 2021. And we think that bodes well for silver, especially on the industrial side, we think that the industrial side is going to grow by about eight percent in 2021. We think that that will be led by demand in electronics and electric products, so we think that's a plus for silver,

We also think that photovoltaic demand and silver's use in solar clean energies are going to continue to grow to about 105 million ounces this year, and we think that silver's role in automobiles is going to grow, you know, as the world looks at a way to somehow reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, we see more and more hybrid and electric vehicles being made available to consumers. And as a result of not only that demand for those particular vehicles but also government policies mandating that, certain fleets. For example, in the United States President Biden signed an executive order stating that from some period and going forward, that US government vehicles have to be either hybrid or all-electric, but during time frame in California we saw legislation mandating that new residential homes be equipped with solar power energy systems.

So we think this is a win-win for silver down the road as its use in photovoltaics as well as its use in automotive vehicles continues to grow because silver is used in all of these vehicles, it's the electrical contact that makes these products these vehicles go and, as you get more complex complexity into the vehicles not only with BEV-battery operated electric vehicles but also, down the road, autonomous vehicles, we think that silver's growth by 2025 or annual use will be about 80-85 million ounces, so just shy of 90 million ounces in just a short four year period of time.

 

9. Q&A with gold and silver experts

ALESSANDRO: Incredible, but I have hundreds of questions, we can stay here for two hours speaking together but the goal is maybe also to involve the audience. I see that there is a lot of question here so I will skip a little bit of my question maybe, if we still have five minutes later I will re-jump on a few, even personal questions I have on silver, and I used to sell physical products. But I still have questions that I would like to ask experts like you. But let's switch to the audience. Let's start with the questions, and if someone of the 75 participants has any other question, don't hesitate to write.

So, the first one by Hamad: is it possible for gold to have an increase like the usual years before Covid for the future prospects?

KRISHAN: So I think Covid was a kind of once-in-a-generation event, it certainly was unprecedented to many levels but what I would say is, while we did see about a 25% increase in the gold price during 2020, gold was actually rallying in 2019 as well.

So I'd go back to the point that I made earlier that actually, you know, over the long run we see that that gold does produce a return which can benefit investors. Now, what that might mean for gold going forward - obviously, we can't say but certainly, as I mentioned in my outlook response, was that I think there are levels of support or areas of support we can see for investment demand and consumer demand.

But, in terms of where the kind of the price-performance might go, it's very difficult
to say and not something we generally comment on.

ALESSANDRO: Okay, cool thank you, and now we have a question from Roman, it's more on silver probably: “Hello, do you know why every goods are up - sugar, wheat, copper, probably, wood?” Everyone saw these memes on wood price that is going up and up but silver is not reflecting the demand.

So this is the first question that he had. The second question in the first question regarding silver: “Do you think that the shortage of electronic components could be due to the shortage of silver metals?”

MICHAEL: Well, that's a great question, and I can speak to the second part of that question, and it goes again back to the supply issue and the manufacturing issues. The world was severely disrupted in 2020 and it affected almost every aspect of the silver market, and not only on the investment side but especially on the industrial side where there were shortages, it was difficult to ship, it was difficult to trade. We have a great chapter in our latest World Silver Survey on bullion flows, and the bullion flows were severely impacted in 2020.

And they're improving today and we think, by the end of the year, they could be back at a 2019 level, so we think that the industry the industrial end-users, who rely on certain quality grades of silver, as the year
improves, will be able to have greater access to silver for their particular application.

ALESSANDRO: Okay, cool. A question I’ve just received by email. Probably someone was not able to write the question on the web. Does the paper market, the paper gold, I imagine, affect the price of physical gold?

KRISHAN: So, it's a one gold price but what we see is in the short-term investment markets, and investment macroeconomic variables will tend to have an influence on the performance of gold. But over the longer term, what we tend to see is actually the impact in the kind of the interaction between demand and supply as well as the investment side of the market which kind of determines gold's overall performance.

Now, what we've got on our website is an online tool which is called Quorum, which we built to help investors understand the various macroeconomic variables and scenarios which can influence demand and supply and, in turn, how that impact on demand and supply will impact or influence the performance of gold, and it's something that users can interact with. It's kind of based on our model but users can input their different assumptions and expectations, and it will help generate a kind of implied gold return.

So, depending on your views of the world, you could see how that dynamic plays through, from macroeconomic variables, through the demand and supply, and then into goals performance.

ALESSANDRO: Oh cool, after the webinar we will send an email with all the links to all the participants because I think both of you have a very very good website with a lot of useful content for someone who is interested in precious metals.

Now we have a question regarding silver. Probably, is always more or less the same question but: Why banks always manipulate the price of silver putting the price down? So I think there is a lot of people that believe that there is a lot of manipulation on the price of silver and that the prices should be higher than the one that is at the moment.

MICHAEL: We hear from folks who are passionate about that belief on a daily basis. We get emails and phone calls and so forth, and one of the things that we've done over the course of the last six, seven, eight, ten years, is we've made ourselves and the market players available to regulatory bodies and in the United States, the CFTC. So we do chat with them and if we see anything that's out of the ordinary we will contact them, they ask us how the markets are flowing basically on a quarterly basis.

But, quite frankly, I think that the government regulators need to pay more serious attention to the concerns of many investors in the market who are making this case. We sort of remain agnostic on this, as a marketer for the medal of silver but we hear those concerns daily I express those concerns to the CFTC,
here in the United States and we will continue to do so. What we want to ensure is that every voice is heard, and these allegations are addressed in a formal governmental process.

ALESSANDRO: Now we have a question that is more of a financial question. So I don't think that neither Krishan nor Michael can answer it: "Shall we buy the dip after the crisis occurs or buy now regardless?" So probably no one can answer this question because if we had a crystal ball we would be all rich, but I think that precious metals, as said before by Michael and Krishan, must be a part of a well-diversified portfolio so it's not when to buy silver and gold but it's a "yes or no" to having precious metals in a well-diversified portfolio, you know.

KRISHAN: I was just going to make the point that we advocate a strategic allocation to gold. So, almost exactly as you said, we advocate holding gold as part of a portfolio. Now, what allocation that might be depends on the particular investor but, certainly, we feel that it should be a strategic holding because of the benefits that I've already mentioned. There is a kind of research analysis that we've provided on our website gold hub that shows that there is a kind of a meaningful benefit to holding gold that's part of a well-diversified portfolio.

MICHAEL: That's good, Krishan, I've been to your site, that is a very informative piece of work under the Goldhub banner through the WGC.

We have a section on investment on The Silver Institute's website and we outline the various investment opportunities for somebody. We personally do not give out investment advice but we strongly feel like Krishan and his colleagues at the World Gold Council that some part of your portfolio should be allocated to silver and we make that argument on our website, and we also provide opportunities to contact certain dealers and certain investment providers directly from our website in order to take that first step.

ALESSANDRO: And, probably, we will take the last question because I have my colleagues here that say you have to end the webinar, we're running out of time, but we have a lot of questions.

I’m very happy that the audience appreciates the format and, again, I say to the audience that they can check both websites or the World Gold Council and The Silver Institute platform that is full of valuable content.

So just to pick one last question: How do short position from big players compares to the yearly production of silver? How the short position from big players compares to the early production of silver?

MICHAEL: I'm not sure I understand the question. Can you rephrase it?

ALESSANDRO: So I think what the person means is how the short position from big players like big banks, probably, shorting silver...

MICHAEL: I've already answered that question with respect to regulation, it's something that like, again, we hear from every day, we're lit up on these questions. These are legitimate concerns. That need to be addressed across all global markets, I mean regulators, really need to start addressing these questions
which are occurring more and more frequently.

And the accusations about certain banks shorting their position, banks holding more silver than they actually report, banks crushing the silver price when they go to work in the morning all the advantages that were made in Asia and Europe, and then certain banks check in the morning and on the east coast and drive the price down. I can't answer those questions but regulators certainly can so I would encourage anybody who has these concerns to contact the CFTC in the United States and other regulators overseas because, quite frankly, that's their job to investigate.

Now, from the CFTC standpoint, these allegations have been going on for quite some time and they've written at least two letters that I'm aware of that address the points that have been made but, quite frankly, the issue still exists and investors are still concerned, so on behalf of them, we encourage the regulators to start really answering these questions immediately.

ALESSANDRO: Perfect, again, we still have a lot of questions but the time is running fast. We're running out of time so, again, thank you very much, Michael and Krishan, for your valuable content. I hope the audience was able to learn a lot of insight into the industry and we will send to all the attendees the
details and some PDF, to analyze more some of the research you do from your side, guys.

So thank you again for taking the time to participate and I hope we can talk again soon regarding
the outlook maybe for 2022.

GUEST SPEAKERS: Thank you very much.

ALESSANDRO: Bye, everyone, and thank you to all the attendees for participating in this webinar! 

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