Charles Oliver of Sprott Asset Management anticipates a rise in precious metals prices by the end of the year. In these excerpts from an interview with The Gold Report, he shares why:

 

"Gold is just as valuable today as it was 100 years ago. There was an orchestrated takedown of gold in April 2013. It has since traded between $1,200/oz and $1,400/oz, and this flies in the face of the conditions you mentioned [War in the Middle East and Russian troops in Ukraine].

We're going to have to be patient. We have gone through a bottoming process. We've had similar conditions before. In 1974, after the oil embargo, U.S. inflation was increasing dramatically, yet gold fell from about $200/oz to about $100/oz in 1976. Then over the next four years gold subsequently rallied to over $800/oz. In this decade, gold has fallen from $1,921/oz to $1,180/oz, but the fundamentals remain intact, and gold will regain its reputation as a unique store of value.

At Sprott, we believe very strongly that the next decade will see the gold/silver ratio move toward its historic rate of 1:16. The last time this happened was in 1980, when the gold price was $800/oz and the silver price was $50/oz. Under this scenario when the gold prices rise to $1,600/oz, I could expect silver to hit $100/oz. That would be a 500% increase in the silver price, versus a 30% increase in the gold price. I have taken a fairly significant weighting in the silver sector."

"If there is one adjective to describe silver, it's 'indispensable.' There are no adequate replacements. It is an extremely versatile metal, perhaps the most versatile in the periodic table. Silver can do a lot of good, too. For instance, it is being used more and more in medical implements that come in contact with the human body because silver kills bacteria in single-cell organisms. Silver is also used in the food industry to preserve and process foods like meat and dairy products.

But long before silver was improving our health and food safety, it was the world's currency. The word for silver is synonymous with money in 52 languages."