I think it is prudent to have 0.5-1% of your net worth in physical gold and silver. That’s far less than goldbugs suggest, but more than 90% of investors.
Between the two, silver seems to have better fundamentals: more industrial use, harder to recover and recycle, lower stockpiles, ratio to gold way out of historical norms.
SLV is nice to trade in and out. The management fee however is too high for a 5+ year investment timeframe, and physical is better.
Silver is an odd market because most silver is not mined directly, but a byproduct of gold and zinc mining. Mines focused on silver just can’t be opened as long as it is below 20, though existing mines can operate.
The upshot is that demand for silver is slowly rising and mining of it slowly declining. Doesn’t mean it can’t go down, but the large number of investors and long-term industrial users provide a sort of floor.
