It’s time for gold miners to shine for investors

Article Excerpt

Physical gold, silver, and palladium have been stellar performers over the past two decades, even beating the S&P 500. In the case of silver and palladium, this came at the expense of higher volatility, but not so for gold, which had a similar level of risk to the S&P 500. Gold producers have underperformed physical gold over the past two decades but this may change as producers tighten their capital spending and start to reward investors with better dividends and share buybacks. Russia is a major producer of precious metals. Restrictions on supplies from Russian refiners will reduce global supply and exert upward pressure on metal prices, especially platinum and palladium. Precious metals are rare and have a high value to weight ratio. The most well-known are gold, silver, and platinum but the group also includes metals such as ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, and iridium. Gold is also used in the manufacture of jewellery, artifacts, electronics and medicines. Only 10% to 15% of gold…