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The Ups and Downs of Investing in Strategic and Precious Metals
Rare Strategic Metals
Humans have long prized the inherent value of precious metals, especially but not exclusively, gold and silver. The beauty of the metals themselves notwithstanding, precious metals were often the physical basis of coins in many ancient civilizations and a monetary standard in numerous more modern cultures. Jewelry crafted by premiere artisans of the time served as status symbols for kings and queens, emperors, pharaohs and discriminating, wealthy patrons. Today, the use of precious metals in industry, space exploration and manufacturing — just to name a few — has increased their desirability. Prices for the standards, gold and silver, are often driven higher during a period of perceived scarcity. Investing in precious metals isn’t always a smooth course, but, with wise oversight and expert advice, critical roadblocks can be minimized or eliminated.
Demand for strategic and precious metals are on the rise. Huge industrial markets in China and India have created an ever-increasing demand for strategic metals such as tungsten, chromium, cobalt, gallium, indium, as well as silver, platinum and gold. The uses of strategic metals are many and surges in electronics, wind turbine energy, cellular phones, fiber optics, computer chips, solar cells, electrodes, capacitors, aerospace communication — all forms of advance technology — has created a rising demand for these metals. The following list reveals a quick overview of the benefits of investing in precious and technological metals. Physical metals are:
- Tangible assets
- A protection against inflation
- Bought and sold in many forms
- Insurance against hyperinflation
- Robust investments in the global market
- A good way to diversify against investment risks
- A protection against currency devaluation
While strategic metals are expected to appreciate over time, each investor must make his or her own well-informed decision. Before taking any investment plunge, savvy investors should become well versed in the nature of any possible roadblocks.
- Volatility in price
- Concerns with changing industrial supply and demand
- Industry performance
- Possible humanitarian and environmental problems
- Increased cost of raw materials and fuel
- Government whims and influences
Despite these critical roadblocks, the outlook for investing in precious and strategic metals looks positive; these metals continue to be in high demand and show no signs of slowing, due to their ever-increasing role in industry and manufacturing.
With an investment of a diverse basket of strategic metals stored in a repository in Switzerland or Panama, you will be buying metal, not paper. You invest directly in metals that have a long history of intrinsic worth and burgeoning value in industry. It’s worth noting again that, in order to protect your hard-earned assets, Swiss Metal Assets gives you physical ownership of metals and stores it for you in Switzerland or Panama, tax and duty free. Preserve the wealth you’ve accumulated and realize a profit by doing so.
Strategic Rare Metals - Critical for the Future of US Defense
Rare Strategic Metals
As more and more dollars get printed, it gets harder to foresee a future that doesn’t include significant inflation. If you’re worried about inflation, you can protect yourself by purchasing tangible assets with fixed values. Gold, oil and gas interests, and real estate are all examples of assets that typically hedge against inflation. However, if you aren’t including strategic rare metals in your investment portfolio, you’re missing out on a major opportunity.
Strategic Rare Metals
These compounds are naturally occurring elements — just like gold or aluminum. Like gold, they are relatively rare. Unlike gold, which is primarily used for investment or for leisure spending, strategic rare metals are extremely important in the manufacture of many of the goods that you use. You might not have heard of iridium, for instance, but it’s used in light-emitting diodes and in flat-screen displays. It is also 10 times rarer than gold, based on its natural occurrence in the Earth’s crust.
Much of gold’s value comes from popular opinion, rather than from its intrinsic usefulness. It is relatively unimportant for industrial purposes and equally attractive jewelry can be made from different compounds. While it has been held to be a valuable compound for thousands of years, there is relatively little justification underpinning that belief. Strategic metals, on the other hand, are valuable because they’re necessary. Fuel cells, computer chips, optical lenses, pharmaceuticals and military devices can’t be made without them. This gives them real, intrinsic value, and can make them a particularly useful tool to protect your wealth against future erosion in the dollar.
Metals and Defense
The defense industry uses strategic rare metals heavily:
- Gallium. Communications devices use gallium.
- Iridium. Iridium is used in many optical applications including night vision, laser tracking and target recognition systems.
- Rhenium. The ability of rhenium to withstand extreme temperatures makes it crucial for fabricating parts in military jet engines.
- Tantalum. Weapons systems designers that need small, but high-capacity, capacitors turn to tantalum alloys.
- Tungsten. Once used heavily for incandescent light bulbs, tungsten’s hardness makes it an important part of penetrating armaments and other projectiles.
Without these strategic rare metals, the nature of military hardware would have to change overnight. During both good times and extremely bad times, the military has the ability to spend either because tax revenues justify it or because the government wants to protect itself. With this in mind, the rare metals that the military needs to function can be an excellent hedging investment.
Owning Strategic Rare Metals
Owning strategic metal isn’t like buying copper or aluminum. Many of them have prices that are roughly comparable to that of gold, so the quantities that you typically need to buy are reasonable. Like gold, you can buy physical metals rather than depending on a paper-based investment where you don’t truly have ownership that you can count on. Rare strategic metals can even be held in a self-directed IRA and can even be stored overseas, giving you a foothold in another country in the event of severe instability in the United States.
Whether or not you realize it, strategic rare metals power most of the devices in your life as well as driving the country’s military. You’ve benefited from them for years. Now, you can also benefit from their stability and value by including them in your investment portfolio.
Precious Metals vs. Rare Strategic Metals - What you Need to Know.
Rare Strategic Metals
Global falling inflation affected gold prices earlier this year, rendering it less valuable than previously and creating a question mark around investing in this precious metal. The expected stimulation by the Federal Reserve’s bond buying program was not forthcoming adding to the decline of investors choosing gold as a sure investment. This has increased the attractiveness of buying rare strategic metals, which unlike gold, have intrinsic value in numerous industrial applications.
Rare Strategic (technical / industrial) Metals
Though these metals are not in fact not exactly rare, being much more common than gold, they are found all across the globe but only in sufficient amounts in certain areas which warrant mining these metals. They are usually found in clusters due to their related properties, which call for expensive extraction processes that generate toxic waste and excessive electrical power. China is the main producer of these rare metals and exporting very little as its demand grows. These elements have increased the value of these metals which will unlikely diminish for some time.
Strategic Rare Metal Usage:
- Production of different types of military and medical equipment.
- Material used in making electrical motor magnets
- Used for computer and television displays (flat panel)
- Material used for power hybrid motor’s rechargeable batteries.
Due to these heavily required products within modern technology, strategic or technological metals make a secure portfolio investment.
Precious Metal Investment v. Rare Metals Investment
- The top investors already possess much of world’s precious metals (like gold) already, which allows very little room for new investors. Whereas rare metals are fairly new in the investing world. Those who begin investing in the early stages have a great chance of seeing the most benefits as the market expands.
- Strategic Rare metals are not sold on the foreign exchange, restricting trade giving investors in these metals an advantage of experiencing less fraudulent exchanges in comparison to the precious metal, gold.
- There is a wider choice of options as there are many different rare metals for trading purposes compared to one within the gold market.
- Though Gold has been a truly great investment over a long period of time, demands are changing. The investors hungry for new markets have a great opportunity in investing in rare metals. These provide investors with added stability and the potential for real financial growth.
Converting to Safer Strategic Metals for your Portfolio
Converting your currency into actual physical metals is a way of securing your financial portfolio, as these metals do not belong to the uncertain realm of others in the current market; they maintain their tangible fixed asset status. National Geographic described these metals as “the secret ingredient in almost anything” as industrial demand continues to surpass production increasing the value of strategic metals and ensuring their cost rises yearly. On investing in these metals, the buyer gains full legal title to the metals.
You can now purchase and stockpile strategic and technical metals in Switzerland or Panama, which was to date only possible for research and industry buyers, expanding and securing your financial wealth while the future of precious metals remain uncertain.
Strategic Rare Metals - Your Ace in the Hole when the Chips are Down?
Rare Strategic Metals
Choosing where to invest your hard earned money can sometimes feel like an impossible task. Decisions need to be based on many factors including the longevity of the investment, the amount of risk you are willing to take and the return expect on your investment. Historically, short term, high risk investments bring higher levels of return. But, there are investment routes that can minimize the risk while providing better than expected returns on investment. One such route involves the strategic rare metals market.
What are strategic rare metals?
Strategic rare metals are the unsung heroes of manufacturing. They include metals such as Tantalum, Indium, Hafnium, along with industrial grade gold and silver. These and several others are essential components in 80% of manufactured goods. The metals have traditionally been mined in China and new worldwide mining operational have done little to break China’s monopoly on the rare metals. Coupled with increasing demand from industrial nations prices for the metals have continued to rise.
Why not just stick to gold and silver?
The status of gold and silver as investment potential should never be under estimated. But, these precious metals are subject to unpredictable forces that do not affect strategic rare metals. At least half the amount of silver and nearly 90% of gold are mined for purposes other than industry. The percentages that are not used in industry are destined for jewelry, collector’s items, and direct investment. This makes the prices of these metals more open to economic variables, such as inflation. Their volatile nature makes tracking and predicting the outcome of your investments more difficult and therefore increases the risk over the long term. By investing in strategic rare metals, including, rather than limiting to, gold and silver, your investment has a steadier base and is safer over the long term.
What returns can you expect?
Strategic rare metals benefit from being in continuous and long term demand. While they are still required for manufacturing,there is little chance of experiencing a significant fall in their value. Take, for example, the Key Industries Basket; launched in March 2009, it includes Indium, Gallium, Hafnium, Tellurium, Tantalum, and Bismuth. These are key elements in flat screen TV’s, fuel cells, and semi conductors as well as a wide array of other everyday items. At its launch, the basket was priced at $10,290.09, by March 31st, 2012 it had grown by 79.07% and continues to show steady progress. Each of the strategic rare metal baskets on the market has shown growth since its launch, as well.
What are the long term prospects?
No investment can ever be considered as an absolutely sure thing, but strategic rare metals are the next best thing. The growth of new industrial nations, such as India, means that demand for these metals is higher than ever. In addition, the growth in the use of the metals in defense manufacturing boasts up the demand, as well.
Applications for one of the newer baskets consisting of Tantalum, Indium, Gallium, Rhenium, and Tungsten include weapons systems, laser tracking, aerospace communications, and stealth aircraft manufacturing. While the basket may be new, the applications are neither new or likely to be short lived. Countries all over the globe will continue their defense programs, to protect themselves from perceived threats, and these programs require the necessary metals.
Whether you are looking for long term stability, low risk factors, or purely to invest in something different,there is a basket that meets your needs and will be your ace, regardless of how your other investments are doing.
