Investing in Rare Metals:  Gold , Platinum and Silver.  by Jon25

Decline of stock & real estate prices has forced the investment community to
look beyond the option of investing in these businesses. Instead, they are
critically analyzing the traditional investments like investing in metals.
Investing in metals is fast catching up as a suitable alternative to
investing in stocks and real estate, especially in the current recessionary
trend.
Investing in metals involves investments in those rare metals which either
have traditional cosmetic value in jewellery or are valued as per their
utilitarian value.
Gold is an example of first category of metals which has always been found
to be dependable investment even tool even during recession. Even though far
cheaper than Gold, Silver is another metal which is used in jewellery but
has also found its utility in photography and electronics. There are other
uses of Silver which are under experimentation like replacement of platinum
in catalytic converters as well as in the field of manufacture of solar
panels. These all reasons underscores that the future of Silver as an
important material can not be ruled out. Hence, Silver is seen as one of the
dependable investment tool equivalent to Gold.
Another class of metals is where the rare metal has important applications
in the various modern industries. For example, Uranium is a raw material for
nuclear power reactors and as the energy demand keeps growing rapidly, the
importance of Uranium is expected to increase and hence its price. As there
is no safe replacement in near future for nuclear power reactors to meet the
huge energy demand of current and future, Uranium demand is slated to
increase. Another feature of Nuclear reactors is that it does not release
harmful greenhouse gases like Thermal power plants, helping the countries to
keep the Greenhouse emissions under control.  Platinum and Titanium are
other examples of rare earth metals which find important application in the
field of Catalytic converts for Automobile industry and medical equipments
e.g. hip joints, respectively. As the concern for environment increases,
catalytic converters will be in demand thus pushing the demand for Platinum.
Titanium is also used as a raw material in Golf equipments, Designer
jewellery, additives, pigments and coatings etc. As Titanium is light in
weight, it also finds application in manufacturing of aerospace and marine
equipments.