Great Panther Silver’s modus operandi is to buy a past-producing mine, get it up and running as quickly as possible, and use the cash flow to fund more acquisitions, says CEO Bob Archer in this interview with The Gold Report. Having succeeded in Mexico with Guanajuato and Topia, the company is now taking on Coricancha in Peru.
The Gold Report: Can you start off by telling us your perception of the silver market and how you think silver is going to perform in the Trump era?
Bob Archer: I believe precious metals bottomed near the end of 2015. Through 2016 we saw quite a nice rebound both in metal prices and in market sentiment, so that’s been very positive for the industry. The price of silver rebounded a lot faster than the price of gold. That reversed the gold-silver ratio that had been going up until the end of 2015, when it peaked at about 83 or 84.
Through 2016, on a percentage basis, silver outperformed gold, so the ratio has dropped back down. At one point it got down to around 65, but it’s back up around 70 right now.
I think that trend will continue: The gold-silver ratio will continue to decrease. The longer-term average over the last 10 to 20 years has been around 60. But when metal prices peaked in 2011, that ratio went down to about 35. So there is a very good sense that silver will outperform gold quite significantly over the next few years.
As far as Mr. Trump is concerned, so far he’s been really good for precious metals, largely because the market does not like uncertainty, and that pretty much surrounds him like a cloud. Nobody really seems to know what to think. As long as that uncertainty is out there, precious metals …read more