“Hang Seng Financial”: Many investors are supplementing their gold holdings by turning to silver.
Hang Seng Financial, the Asia-based investment house, has reportedly restated its confidence in silver as an alternative to gold for clients looking to gain further exposure to precious metals.
As part of their monthly email to clients, analysts at Hang Seng Financial suggested that fundamental supply and demand dynamics coupled with the monetization of debt by governments were just two of the factors supporting the case for investment in what is seen as gold’s sister precious metal.
Although much of the spotlight has been on gold’s impressive 40% price gain in 2009, silver has become the contrarian investor’s cause de célèbre with many commentators citing the metal’s industrial uses and its perception as a currency in many parts of the world.
Hang Seng Financial analysts believe that the price of silver is likely to increase as the metal’s use in a number of new technologies continues to grow. Silver is used in RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), an electronic tag which is used extensively by retailers, logistics firms and airport baggage handlers to identify the location and identity of goods or merchandise.
Hang Seng Financial believe that exposure to silver – through the physical commodity, ETFs, and/or silver mining companies – will likely be a “very attractive investment“ over the next several years.
