Australia
Gold-silver ratio reaches highest level in 87 years from lowest level in 41 years
As technical indicators go, the ratio of gold price to silver prices, commonly referred to as the gold-silver ratio, is considered by precious metal traders to be one of the most reliable indicators for forward price movements in silver.
The gold-silver ratio indicates how many ounces of silver are required to buy one ounce of gold. In times where the ratio is relatively high, it acts as a leading indicator for a rise in silvers value.
Previously the highest the ratio has ever been was 132 to 1 in 1933 when the US government invoked Executive Order 6102 and forced US citizens to sell all but a small portion of their gold and silver holdings to the Federal Reserve.
More recently the highest the ratio has reached is 97.3 to 1 in February 1991 (Figure 1), at the height of a global economic recession.
After this high in the ratio, the silver price rose in a continued uptrend from an average price US$3.74/ounce in February 1991 to US$6.84/ounce in February 1998, an increase of 83%.
Fig..

As technical indicators go, the ratio of gold price to silver prices, commonly referred to as the gold-silver ratio, is considered by precious metal traders to be one of the most reliable indicators for forward price movements in silver.
The gold-silver ratio indicates how many ounces of silver are required to buy one ounce of gold. In times where the ratio is relatively high, it acts as a leading indicator for a rise in silvers value.
Previously the highest the ratio has ever been was 132 to 1 in 1933 when the US government invoked Executive Order 6102 and forced US citizens to sell all but a small portion of their gold and silver holdings to the Federal Reserve.
More recently the highest the ratio has reached is 97.3 to 1 in February 1991 (Figure 1), at the height of a global economic recession.
After this high in the ratio, the silver price rose in a continued uptrend from an average price US$3.74/ounce in February 1991 to US$6.84/ounce in February 1998, an increase of 83%.
Figure 1: Gold-Silver Ratio since 1990. Source: Mining and Metals Research Corporation Ltd.
In June 2003, after a sustained five-year period of lower gold-silver ratios, the gold-silver ratio reached a high of 78.7:1, over the next five years the silver price rose from US$4.53 to a high of US$19.32/ounce in March 2008, (Figure 1) an increase of 326%.
A spike in the gold-silver ratio in December 2008 to 79.3:1, associated with another global recession, was a leading indicator of a 315% increase in the silver price from US$10.29/ounce in December 2008 to US$42.7 in April 2011 (Figure 1).
The gold-silver ratio has now risen from a low of 34.7:1 in April 2011, its lowest level since 1979, to its highest level in 87 years of 111.7:1 in April 2020, before reducing to 90.6:1 in July on the back of a 35% rise in the silver price over just three months (Figure 1).
Could we now be facing a sustained uptrend in the silver price?
Historical precedent appears to suggests so, only once in history was silver more undervalued compared to gold than it was in April 2020 and that was in 1933, when the US Government forced its citizens to sell their precious metal holdings.
A rise in the silver price from its current level of US$28.1, would bode well for companies such as:
Silvercorp Metals Inc (NSYEAMERICAN:SVM) (TSE:SVM) is one of very few silver-focused miners and has profitable operations in China. It reported cash flow operations of US$77.2 million in FY20 at an average silver price of US$13.56/ounce.
Silver Mines Ltd (ASX:SVL) hosts the largest undeveloped silver project in Australia and one of the largest globally. Bowdens Silver Project in Central West NSW has a JORC measured, indicated and inferred resource of 128 million tonnes at 40 g/t silver, 0.38% zinc and 0.26% lead for 275 million ounces silver equivalent. The company looks set to add to this bounty from the nearby Barobolar project with sampling returning up to 252 g/t silver.
Argent Minerals Ltd (ASX:ARD) has a suite of projects along the prolific Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW with its flagship Kempfield project hosting a silver-equivalent resource of 52 million ounces with strong potential to add further resources. This project, which is south of the Cadia operations of Newcrest Mining, is a registered NSW State Significant Development.
Red River Resources Limited (ASX:RVR) is diversifying from base metals production in northern Queensland into gold through the Hillgrove project in NSW and is also highly encouraged by high-grade silver of up to 1,730 g/t in initial exploration at the newly acquired Orient project in north Queensland, adjacent to the new Isabel project which has an historic silver resource.
PNX Metals Ltd (ASX:PNX) has the Hayes Creek Zinc and Precious Metals Project in the Northern Territory which includes a silver resource of 9.28 million ounces. With the company focusing on the nearby Fountain Head Gold Project, it has signed a term sheet with private company Halifax Capital and its subsidiary Bridge Creek Mining covering these projects.
Aftermath Silver Ltd (CVE:AAG) (OTCMKTS:AAGFF), which reRead More – Source
Australia
Australia election: Why is Australia’s parliament so white?

Australia
Scott Morrison effectively ditches his promise to establish a federal anti-corruption commission

Scott Morrison has effectively abandoned his promise to establish a federal anti-corruption watchdog, confirming he would only proceed with legislation in the new parliament if Labor agreed to pass the Coalition’s heavily criticised proposal without amendments.
Morrison pledged before the 2019 election to legislate a federal integrity body in the parliamentary term that has just ended. The prime minister broke that promise, failing to introduce his own proposal before the 46th parliament was prorogued.
On the hustings on Wednesday, Morrison was asked – given his previous undertaking to create the body – whether he would promise to put his proposal to a vote in the next parliament in the event the Coalition won the 21 May election.
Morrison declined to make that promise. “Our position on this hasn’t changed,” the prime minister said. “Our view has been the same – when the Labor party is prepared to support that legislation in that form, then we will proceed with it.”
The prime minister has attempted to inoculate himself from criticism about breaking an election promise by saying he tabled the integrity commission proposal in the parliament.
Tabling an exposure draft, which is what the prime minister did, is not the same as introducing finished legislation to the House of Representatives or the Senate that is then debated and voted on.
As well as repeatedly fudging what happened in parliament, Morrison has also created the impression the proposal can only proceed if Labor agrees to its passage without amendments.
All governments routinely introduce legislation for debate without any undertaking that it will be passed by the opposition. Labor favours a stronger model than the Coalition’s proposal.
Morrison’s lack of urgency on the issue created tensions within government ranks. Late last year, the Tasmanian Liberal MP Bridget Archer crossed the floor to support independent MP Helen Haines’ bill to establish a federal integrity commission. Archer accused the government of “inertia” over the issue.
At that time, Archer said she was “perplexed” at her own government’s failure to release a revised bill almost three years after it was promised before the last election.
While Morrison clearly wants to move on from the issue, he will face renewed pressure from crossbench independents if the coming election is close enough to deliver a hung parliament.
A number of independents running against Liberals in metropolitan seats have made it clear that establishing a credible national integrity commission will be a key demand in the event any new government – Liberal or Labor – is seeking agreements for confidence and supply.
Haines blasted Morrison’s comments on Wednesday. “Mr Morrison broke an election promise to introduce an anti-corruption commission and his pathway to creating one is still as vague as it was in the last parliament,” she said.
The crossbench independent said it was “nonsense” for the prime minister to claim that he could not proceed unless Labor agreed with the Coalition’s proposal without seeking any amendments. “It would appear we are in the same void as we were before,” Haines said.
Australia
Chinese healer Hong Chi Xiao has manslaughter charge overturned and will face new trial

A western Sydney “slapping therapy” practitioner who was found guilty of the manslaughter of a six-year-old diabetic boy and sentenced to 10 years in prison has had his conviction overturned and will face another trial.
Hong Chi Xiao appeared in Sydney’s Court of Criminal Appeal on Wednesday.
Mr Xiao was extradited from London to Sydney in 2017 to face charges more than two years after the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, died following a series of workshops held in Hurstville in April 2015.
The boy’s parents attended the conference where the self-proclaimed Chinese healer showed a “disdain for Western medicine”.
Mr Xiao allegedly advised the parents to stop their son’s insulin injections and blood glucose tests.
A Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) investigation found that Mr Xiao told the boy’s parents that slapping therapy “could heal all diseases, including diabetes, and that no medication was required because insulin could be generated” through the treatment.
He also allegedly recommended the six-year-old boy stop eating for three days and only drink water or a “ginger date drink”.
Slapping therapy, also known as paida lajin, advocates the slapping of skin to release toxins from patients.
The boy became visibly ill over several days and began vomiting a black substance, but Mr Xiao allegedly told the boy’s mother that his body was adjusting to the “self-healing process”.
He began having seizures and was rushed to St George Hospital, where he died.
The NSW Coroner found the treatment directly caused the boy’s death on April 27, 2015.
A District Court jury found Mr Xiao guilty of manslaughter for breaching the duty of care he owed the six-year-old boy through gross negligence.
He was handed a sentence of 10 years with a non-parole period of 7½ years in December 2019.
District Court Judge Garry Neilson said Mr Xiao showed “no signs of true remorse”.
Mr Xiao launched an appeal against his conviction, claiming inconsistencies in the evidence and that Judge Neilson told the jury that there was “no defence” during the trial.
Tim Game SC told the court that Judge Neilson did not summarise the defence case and did not give enough evidence to the jury to make a sound decision.
After a short adjournment, Justice Derek Price, Justice Ian Harrison and Justice Mark Ierace granted the appeal and quashed Mr Xiao’s conviction.
However, he will have to face a fresh trial in front of a new jury.
Mr Xiao will face the Sydney District Court on March 11 for mention.
He has been permanently banned from practising medicine by the HCCC.
The boy’s mother, father and grandmother were also initially charged over his death, but they were found not guilty and acquitted.
Mr Xiao has been in prison since his arrest in 2017 but has long rejected criticism that his techniques endanger lives.
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