How do the other precious metals—silver, palladium, platinum, rhodium, titanium, for example—stack up in comparison?
JP: Basically, what is true of gold is, to some extent, true of silver. Historically, it has been the second monetary metal. However, there are industrial uses as well as decorative and monetary uses for silver, all of which affect demand and therefore price. As you get farther away from gold and silver, you’re into the other metals you mentioned where almost all of the demand comes from industrial uses. I don’t closely watch the prices of platinum, palladium, and the other rare metals. Rather, I concentrate on the sector that I’m most interested in, which includes gold and silver, plus the more common industrial metals. Also, I don’t concentrate on the metals themselves, but on the companies that produce them. In particular, the junior explorers and producers are the ones that are most highly leveraged to the price of commodities, such as gold, so those interest me the most. TGR: But most of those juniors have tanked over the past six months. Do you see them recovering? JP: They’ve ta
