The ratio of the gold price to that of silver is sitting at extreme levels. We're at around 92 now and the last time we were at these levels was just before the dot-com crash in '99. Gold has been on a tear while silver hasn't been doing much.
Risk-aversion
This latest spike in the price has been attributed to risk aversion and central bank buying in anticipation of fallout from the trade war between China and the US.
In this article: https://www.forexlive.com/news/!/have-a-look-at-who-bought-200000-ounces-of-gold-just-before-it-surged-20190624 you can see how much central banks are buying:
- Russia bought 200,000 ounces just before the latest surge
- China bought 11.2 tons of gold in March for their reserves
Short-term, Long-term
So what do you buy? In the short-term, gold looks to be the winner as long as trade and political uncertainties are in the forefront. I doubt we'll see any rally in silver till those get sorted out. The US election season officially gets started this week and we may be able to put all this behind us next year.
Longer term, i like buying silver instead. There's a nice risk-reward ratio at these prices and I think the world will be fine in the long run despite the short-term year to year fluctuations