Gold and silver have always held a close correlation with each other, with silver usually outperforming gold in bull markets, as it did this year.
Assuming a $4,000 gold price target in two to three years’ time, which is roughly a 100% increase from current levels, and assuming a normalization of the gold-silver ratio to 40-1, then silver should be trading at $100 by the time gold doubles in value, said David Morgan of TheMorganReport.com.
“The last time we had that run in silver in 2011, we’ll look at something similar, so at that time it got to about 33 to 1, so if we $4,000 gold and we use a ratio of 40 to 1, that says $100 silver. Is that out of the question? I don’t think so. I actually forecasted that price back in 2003 when silver was under $5, so I think we’ll see that,” Morgan said. “I’m not saying next year, but we’ll see that.”
The last time silver reached the $50 an ounce mark was in 1980 and then again close to $50 in 2011.
“What was in place in 2011 was that QE2 was announced,” Morgan said. “What was in place was that people thought that inflation was going to come…but that’s not what happened, and that’s why silver went to that peak and went back down and really went nowhere except down for the ensuing several years.”
Silver actually performs much better than gold during inflationary markets, Morgan said.
“Gold is the best in a deflation, silver has mixed results, but in inflation there’s nothing better than the silver market,” he said.
While in 2011, quantitative easing didn’t provide liquidity that went into the real economy, thereby stimulating inflation, this time it’s different, Morgan noted.
“This time the money is going into Main Street. You’ve got basically [universal basic income] going on, you’ve got forbearance where you don’t have to pay on your mortgage, your rent payment, you’re getting these unemployment checks that are basically buffered up. Some people make more in unemployment than they were when they were working, and so you’re basically seeing the money come in to the people at this point,” he said.
Even if a recession were to persist, monetary policy would have a stronger force on silver, beating the downward drag that weak industrial demand would have, Morgan said.