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The new gold
新黄金
Even gold enthusiasts tend to view an ardent interest in silver as somewhat eccentric. To traders it is the “poor man’s gold” or “the devil’s metal”. For years those nicknames were justified by silver’s lacklustre returns and the wild ride its price took along the way.
即使是黄金爱好者也往往认为对白银的狂热兴趣有些古怪。对交易者来说，白银是“穷人的黄金”或“魔鬼的金属”。多年来，这些绰号被证明是名副其实，因为白银的回报率一直不尽如人意，而且其价格经历了剧烈的波动。
The devil’s metal is still not for the faint-hearted. But it has almost kept pace with gold over the past year and has outperformed it over the past five. With investment flows now following returns, a once-niche asset is inching towards the mainstream.
魔鬼的金属依然不适合胆小之人投资。但白银在过去一年中几乎与黄金保持同步，并在过去五年中表现优于黄金。随着投资现金流现在开始追随回报，这个曾经小众的资产正逐渐走向主流。
Logic suggests that silver’s price should move similarly to gold’s. It, too, is rare, pretty and inert, and so has been used to forge jewellery and coins for millennia. This long-established role as a store of value lends it “safe-haven” appeal when investors are nervous.
逻辑表明，白银的价格走势应该与黄金相似。白银同样稀有、漂亮、惰性，因此数千年来一直被用于制作珠宝和铸造硬币。当投资者感到紧张不安时，白银长期以来的这种价值储存作用就让它有了“避险”的吸引力。
As with gold, the fixed amount of silver in the Earth’s crust ought also to make it a good hedge against inflation.
与黄金一样，地壳中的白银数量是固定的，这也应使其成为对抗通胀的好工具。
Now it is back in vogue. Central banks have spent years building up their gold reserves. In September Interfax, a Russian news agency, reported that its government would soon start buying silver, too.
现在白银又重归时尚。各国央行多年来一直在增加黄金储备。9月，俄罗斯新闻机构国际文传电讯社报道，俄罗斯政府也将很快开始购买白银。
This year traders in New York have been draining London’s vaults of gold, amid fears that such imports may face tariffs in the future. They have been snapping up silver even faster—so much so, in fact, that the transatlantic price gap justifies loading bars of it onto commercial flights.
今年，纽约的交易员们一直在从伦敦的金库中买走黄金，原因是担心未来进口黄金可能会面临关税。而他们抢购白银的速度更快，事实上已经快到大西洋两岸的银价出现差距，需要用商业航班运输银条。
What is more, a widening gulf between supply and demand looks likely to keep the frenzy going. The annual supply of silver, driven by mining production and recycling, has contracted slightly over the past decade, according to the Silver Institute, a research outfit.
此外，供需之间的差距不断扩大，似乎有可能使白银热度不消。根据研究机构白银研究所的数据，过去十年间，由采矿产量和回收推动的白银年供应量略有收缩。
Over the same period, industrial demand has surged by more than 50%, owing largely to silver’s use in solar panels. Imports into China, which manufactures large quantities of these, have shot up. Since mining capacity cannot be expanded quickly, the imbalance should continue to boost silver’s price for some time.
同一时期，工业需求激增了50%以上，主要是因为白银在太阳能电池板中的使用。中国大量生产太阳能电池板，因此中国进口的白银数量大幅上升。由于采矿产能无法迅速扩大，因此这种供需失衡状态应该会在一段时间内继续推高白银价格。
