As a currency, the Euro doesn't have to do much to equal its peers...
"SILVER HITS new all-time highs in Euro" proclaimed Zero
Hedge on Monday.
Regular readers of the blog site won't choke to know it was wrong, this time
by only one third. Mistaking (and showing) a chart of month-end prices for
a chart of daily silver
prices, Zero Hedge's pseudonymous host, Tyler Durden, missed the true Euro-equivalent
spike to €32.80 per ounce of 18 January 1980 - hit in what was then the
Deutsche Mark the very same day that silver priced in Dollars also hit its
all-time high to date...some 44% above this week's top.
Still, the point is near-enough made. Because silver, like gold, isn't just
about the Dollar, even though its latest surge coincides with the latest plunge
in the US currency. Instead, silver has
also caught a strong and growing bid over the last 5 years against the Dollar's
upstart challenger too. And since the Euro debt crisis really got started 12
months ago, the silver price has scarcely looked back...rising 108% from the
start of 2010.
"The Euro as a currency is not in crisis. The single currency is sound and
credible," said European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet in an interview
with Paris newspaper L'Espresso earlier
this month. Which, a little like Zero Hedge, is both premature and misleading.
Because the Euro "as a currency" doesn't have to achieve very much to retain
the same credibility as its modern-day competitors.
Against the older monetary measures of gold and silver, on the other hand,
the Euro looks just as weak as the other three "big four" reserve currencies
- the Dollar, Sterling and Yen.
Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of
editorial at the UK's leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian
Ash is the head of research at BullionVault,
where you can buy gold today vaulted
in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.
About BullionVault
BullionVault is the secure, low-cost
gold and silver exchange for private investors. It enables you to buy and sell
professional-grade bullion at live prices online, storing your physical property
in market-accredited, non-bank vaults in London, New York and Zurich.
By February 2011, less than six years after launch, more than 21,000 people
from 97 countries used BullionVault,
owning well over 21 tonnes of physical gold (US$940m) and 140 tonnes of physical
silver (US$129m) as their outright property. There is no minimum investment
and users can deal as little as one gram at a time. Each user's unique holding
is proven, each day, by the public reconciliation of client property with formal
bullion-market bar lists.
BullionVault is a full member of
professional trade body the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). Its innovative
online platform was recognized in 2009 by the UK's prestigious Queen's Awards
for Enterprise. In June 2010, the gold industry's key market-development body
the World Gold Council (www.gold.org) joined
with the internet and technology fund Augmentum Capital, which is backed by
the London listed Rothschild Investment Trust (RIT Capital Partners), in making
an $18.8 million (£12.5m) investment in the business.
Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it.
Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make
will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already
been overtaken by events - and must be verified elsewhere - should you choose
to act on it.
Circle Us