1971August 15, US President Nixon announced that the US dollar was decoupled from gold, the Bretton Woods system collapsed, and the US government began to liberalize the price control of gold and silver. The price of silver can fluctuate freely with the market demand, and the intrinsic value of silver coins also exceeds the face value. The historical value of silver has experienced four main historical periods: ancient high price period, modern turbulent period, modern speculative period and contemporary stable growth period. 1. In ancient times, natural silver was mostly alloyed with gold, tribute, antimony, copper or platinum, and natural gold was almost always alloyed with a small amount of silver. Amber gold known in ancient China, called ELECTRUM in English, is a natural gold-silver alloy, containing about 20% silver. At first, because people got very little silver, its value was more expensive than gold. In the Egyptian dynasty code between BC 1780- 1580, the value of silver was twice that of gold. Marx said in the critique of political economy: "... and the mining of silver is based on the mine labor force and usually relatively high technological development." Therefore, although silver is not so absolutely scarce, its initial value is relatively greater than the value of gold. "
What was the value of silver in ancient times? When Su Shi was demoted to Huangzhou, although he felt that he was "eager to do as the Romans do, had a large population and was very worried about his private life", after "painful self-frugality", a family of 8 10 people still had a monthly balance of 4,500 yuan, and their basic living could still be guaranteed. (Su Shi: Answer to Qin Taixu's book) But for Su Shi's family, the monthly living expenses are only worth three taels of silver. In the Ming dynasty, one and a half pieces of silver were enough for a civilian to live for one year. Yuan Chonghuan killed Mao and got 28,000 soldiers. He wrote to the emperor asking: "The annual salary is 420,000, and the rice136,000". In other words, an army of 10,000 people needs to pay 1.52 million yuan every year. Every soldier spends/kloc-0.5 taels of silver a year, which is equivalent to 37.8 grams in Ming dynasty, so 567 grams of silver is a soldier's living expenses for one year. Another example is Qi Jiguang's conscription in the southeast coast, which stipulates that each person's annual salary is 10. After arriving in Yuji Town in the north, the annual salary of recruiting side wall soldiers has increased to 18. These are the recruitment prices of strategic locations. If you don't plan to take part in important battles or in important areas, the recruitment price will be lower: Ming Xiu's Wujin County Chronicle said that the local "recipient has one Japanese silver" and the annual salary is less than four taels.
2. The price of silver in China and Japan in Ming and Qing Dynasties was obviously higher than that in the world market. /kloc-Before the middle of the 9th century, China had a huge surplus in trade with the West (except opium trade with Britain), while China settled in silver, so a large amount of silver from Europe and America flowed into China. Even when China no longer has a huge surplus, the trade with China has led to the instability of the world silver price.
In the 20th century, after the establishment of the international gold standard, it experienced many ups and downs, and silver seemed to be a forgotten corner. With the increasing status of gold in international reserves and trade, the price of silver is also falling. 19 10, the price of gold per ounce is about 38 times that of silver per ounce, increased to nearly 63 times in 1930 and nearly 100 times in 1940! That is to say, those who choose to hold silver as a reserve tool in 19 10 will have only 30% of the wealth of those who choose gold as a reserve tool after 30 years.
3. Modern speculative period
After 1960, the situation improved obviously, because the gold standard was obviously difficult to maintain, and it was only a matter of time before the currency floated freely. The shadow of inflation is becoming more and more obvious. Because governments prohibit individuals from holding gold, investors who want to buy precious metals can only choose silver, which maintains the price of gold to some extent. By 1970, the exchange rate of gold and silver had fallen to 23 times, the lowest point since the 20th century. Under the background of the big bull market in commodity market, many traders and bankers put a lot of money into commodity futures and spot speculation, and futures prices in turn affect the spot. /kloc-in the 1970s, when the output of gold and silver increased greatly and the international market was highly liquid, American futures traders almost monopolized the world silver market, which led to the soaring price of silver.
From 65438 to the early 1970s, the price of silver hovered around $2 per ounce-a seemingly low figure, but it has increased by about 80% from the lowest point, mainly because the US Treasury relaxed its control over silver. At the same time, the price of gold is also very low, only about 23 times that of silver, which shows that the whole precious metal market is at a low point. 197365438+February, futures speculators bought a lot of silver at the price of 2-3 dollars per ounce, becoming one of the largest silver holders in the world. Soon there was a serious shortage of silver in the market-in the past few decades, many silver mines were closed because of unprofitable, and people's enthusiasm for mining new silver mines was not high. The "elasticity of supply" of silver is small. When the price suddenly rises, the silver producer can't expand the output immediately, which leads to further price increase. In just two months, the price of silver has risen to $6.7 per ounce, an increase of nearly 130%!
In the summer of 1979, there was a huge amount of buying in the market, and the price of silver rose rapidly from $6 to 1 1 USD. With the continuous influx of speculators, the price of silver is becoming more and more crazy-from 1 1 USD to $20, then to $30, and to 1979, it exceeded $40! The exchange rate of gold and silver fell to about 12 times, a record low. The futures market has completely lost control of silver. Silver producers all over the world are excited about this, and they quickly start the plan to find new silver mines, and many closed silver mines have been re-mined. Ordinary residents in the United States and Europe are also surprised by the rise in the price of silver. They rummaged through everything, looking for ancestral silver tea sets and decorations. All the articles made of silver are melted without hesitation and made into standard silver pieces for sale in the market.
1980 65438+1October 2 1, silver rose to the highest price in history: 50.35 USD/oz. In just 12 months, the price of silver has increased by 8 times; Since 1970, the price of silver has increased by 25 times. No commodity in human history has had such a long and terrible bull market! However, shortly after the price of silver reached $50, the New York Mercantile Exchange issued a temporary regulation: from now on, it is forbidden to establish new silver futures contracts, and only the old contracts are allowed to be closed. This means that monopolists can no longer buy any silver from the futures market, and the total number of silver futures contracts will only decrease continuously. No one can manipulate the price by buying or selling in large quantities. On March 25th 1980, the price of silver plummeted and the price of silver collapsed. March 27th 1980 is called "Silver Thursday" by the futures industry. Silver futures, which were running at a high level just a few days ago, actually fell to a low of 10 on March 27th. The Federal Reserve and major commercial banks in the United States made every effort to make the silver price temporarily stop falling and stabilize after falling to $0.82 per ounce, and the vigorous silver crisis came to an end. After 198 1 year, with the expansion of silver production, the futures and spot prices of silver continued to fall until the beginning of this century.
4. Since 1990, the global silver inventory has dropped by 74%, and the silver inventory has reached a record low. Although the overall consumption of silver is still low, the consumption of silver has generally increased in the past 10 years. Generally speaking, the global total output of mineral silver may increase at some point in the future, but it will not be until some large new minerals are completely produced or new silver mines are put into use. Because the global output of mineral silver will not increase for the time being, and the demand for silver in various industries around the world is still growing steadily, this provides fundamental support for the continued optimism of the silver market in the future. With the development of economy, the demand of silver manufacturing industry is slowly increasing, and the amount of silver used in electrician, electronics, welding alloy and solder, jewelry and silver products, silver coins and commemorative medals will increase.
In 2002, the price of silver once again launched a new bull market. The flood of liquidity in the financial market and the demand for hedging caused by the financial crisis have greatly increased the market demand for precious metals, the price of gold has soared and silver has also risen rapidly. Because silver is much cheaper than gold? Its price fluctuation is also more intense. 2065438+01April 28th, under the influence of the European debt crisis, the price of silver quickly climbed to a 30-year high of $49.44 per ounce? Approaching the historical peak of the last bull market, it almost doubled in five months, which was nine times higher than before 1902.
Historically, commodity prices fluctuated in a big cycle of about 30 years. Silver has basically gone through a cycle from the high point of the last bull market, that is, $49.45 at 1980 to $48.44 at 201/kloc-0. At present, the price of silver is mainly supported by two aspects. First, with the development of the world economy, silver is more and more widely used in the industrial field. Second, with the increase of silver investment products, the investment demand of silver has become an important factor affecting the price in the overall turbulent financial market.
Silver has always been the "shadow" of gold, but it is different from gold. Although silver has precious metal properties, its main use is still reflected in industry. Since 2007, the international silver market has been in a state of oversupply. According to the data of the World Silver Association, the global silver supply in 20 12 was10.48 million ounces, 8.9 million ounces more than that in 201year. Among them, the mineral output increased to 787 million ounces, an increase of 3.8% compared with 20 1 1, mainly due to the export of lead-zinc ore by-products. The supply of major silver mines increased by 1% year-on-year, accounting for 28% of the global silver mine output. Among them, the total output of silver in China ranks first in the world. In recent ten years, the output of silver mines in China has almost increased by 100%. In recent years, the output of silver in China has been increasing at a rate of over 10%.
Societe Generale released a report saying that it is estimated that there may still be an oversupply of more than 4,000 tons of silver in 20 13 years. Barclays Bank predicts that the global silver supply will reach 32,347 tons in 20 13, an increase of 0.8% compared with 20 12. In 20 13 years, the overall global silver supply exceeds demand, and there may be an excess of 644 1 ton. In 20 14, the global supply will reach 32775 tons. In the case of decreasing demand in the silver industry and slowing investment demand, the supply growth of silver mines is still strong. The author predicts that the pattern of oversupply of 20 14 silver will continue, and the increase or decrease of actual investment demand will determine the trend of silver price.
In 20 13, the manufacturing demand of silver decreased 1.8%, and jewelry and silverware were the main manufacturing demand of silver, which decreased 1.4% in 20 12. The biggest decline in industrial silver in India and western Europe stems from the weak economic situation in these countries. In the past ten years, the silver jewelry market in China has expanded by 265,438+065,438+0%, and it is expected to grow further in 2065,438+04. In the same period, the demand for silver processing in China increased by 1.37%, and the amount of silver processing in the industrial field increased from 37.7 million ounces to 84.4 million ounces, mainly from the electronics industry. However, with the slowdown of domestic economic growth, the lack of support for economic and downstream demand recovery will put pressure on the growth of the electronics industry.
The global economic growth trend, in addition to the difficult and slow economic recovery in Europe, the economic situation in developing countries is also slowing down. China is the world's largest producer and consumer of silver, and China's economic growth has slowed down, weakening the industrial demand for silver. The data shows that the silver import of China in June 20 13 decreased by 5.73% compared with the same period in June 20 12, and the demand was low for two consecutive months. Judging from the domestic economic situation, both manufacturing PMI and GDP show that the economic growth momentum is slowing down, while inflation is intensifying and market funds are tight. China's economic expansion is still highly dependent on investment, and the reform measures focus on promoting consumption and regulating the real estate market.
China, the United States and Japan are the biggest contributors to the demand of global silver industry. Since 2000, the demand for silver in manufacturing industry has remained at the level of 27,000 ~ 28,000 tons, while the consumption in various fields has shown a changing trend. In 20 12, global industrial silver fell by 4%. China and India are rising instead of falling, which is not unrelated to their economic growth. Since the financial crisis in 2008, many industrialized countries have fallen into the pressure brought by the economic crisis, and industrial silver has been suppressed. Although the U.S. economy is picking up steadily, the recovery in Europe and Japan is weak, and the economic growth of emerging countries is stabilizing, it is estimated that the demand of the silver industry will not increase much in 20 14 years.