In the first part of the Preparing for THE Bottom series, we emphasized the need to be sure to stay alert and focused in the precious metals market, even though it may not appear all that interesting. We argued that preparing for the big moves in gold that are likely to be seen later this year should prove extremely worth one’s while. In the second part of the series, we discussed when, approximately, one can expect the key bottom in gold to form (reminder: this winter appears a likely target).

In today’s issue, we would like to feature one of the signs that are likely to confirm that the final bottom is indeed in. The thing that a relatively small number of investors follow (mostly those who have been interested in the sector for some time) are the intra-market ratios. One of the most important ones is the gold to silver ratio and to be honest, it’s no wonder that this ratio is so important – after all, gold and silver are the parts of the precious metals sector that practically everyone recognizes.

Due to both metals’ popularity and the fact that different types of investors tend to focus on them (gold is more popular among institutions and, generally, big investors, while silver is particularly desired by smaller, individual investors), their relative performance can tell us quite a lot about the situation in the sector. This includes helping to detect and confirming the major turning points in gold and silver.

Let’s take a closer look at the ratio (charts courtesy of StockCharts and macrotrends).

The first thing that comes to mind while looking at the above chart is that the tops in the ratio usually correspond to bottoms in the precious metals market – silver tends to underperform gold to a big extent in the final part of the decline. The mid-2003 spike in the ratio doesn’t directly confirm this rule (there was a local bottom at that time, though), but the 2008 spike, 2011 bottom and the 2016 spike certainly do. So, while it is not inevitable, it seems likely that the major bottom in the precious metals will be accompanied by a big upward spike in the gold to silver ratio i.e. silver’s extreme underperformance.