this is from an essay by andrew mickey, who writes...

the gold / silver ratio hung around 50 for most of 2008. Then the credit crunch threw everything out of whack and now it’s slowly working its way back to normal. But this chart doesn’t show the real upside in silver. That comes from the long-run average.

Over the long term, the gold / silver ratio has averaged about 30. That means one ounce of gold would buy about 30 ounces of silver. Today, with silver at $14.60 an ounce and gold at $953, the gold / silver ratio is 65. In other words, an ounce of gold would buy 65 ounces of silver. That’s more than twice the long-run average.

Silver prices would have to double just to be in line with the long run average.

Silver Slingshot

But here’s the kicker, when gold races, the gold to silver ratio gets flipped around. During the last precious metals bull market in the late 70s and early 80s the gold / silver ratio hit lows of 15.

That means if gold goes nowhere (granted, chances are pretty slim of that), silver could easily shoot up to $50 an ounce. That’s a 400% move for silver without gold moving up a single dollar.

Here’s the thing though, gold isn’t staying where it is. Over the next few years, gold is going much higher. And silver is going to go even higher. Silver will slingshot past gold.

Think about it. With a gold / silver ratio of 15…

At that ratio, silver would be at $66 when gold hits $1,000.

$1,500 gold = $100 silver.

$2,000 gold = $132 silver.

So if you expect gold to do well, you’ve got to expect silver to do even better.

According to the historical relationship between gold and silver, if gold does well, silver will do exponentially better. In past gold bull markets, silver prices zoomed past gold in relative terms. There’s no reason to expect this time to be any different.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1398...