Legendary investor Jim Rogers sees now as a great time to load up on gold and silver coins - and he's not alone. A record 7.5 million ounces of silver coins were sold in January as investors hunted for a safe haven investment. "You can't get [silver coins]. They sell out," Rogers, who owns a rare 2013 silver coin, said on Yahoo! Finance's "The Daily Ticker." "Several mints have run out of coins because everybody's worried about the future of the world." And 150,000 ounces of American Eagle gold coins were sold in January, the highest monthly total since July 2010. "Gold has been up 12 years in a row which is extremely unusual for anything," added Rogers. "A lot of speculators are rushing into gold right now. I'm not rushing into gold, but I'm certainly not selling it. If it goes down, I'm buying more." Gold and Silver Prices in 2013 While gold is only up half a percentage point so far this year, silver is up around 5%. Many analysts, including Money Morning Global Resources Specialist Peter Krauth, see both metals ending the year higher, especially silver. Gold and silver will be spurred by the inflationary actions of central banks, strong investor demand and decreased supplies. Krauth expects silver to outperform gold because of the added demand from its various industrial uses, and its low price compared with gold. In fact, Krauth sees silver prices, currently trading around $31.50 an ounce, reaching $54 an ounce. He sees gold, now trading at $1,675 an ounce, hitting $2,200 an ounce during 2013. Gold and silver may be off their highs but that hasn't hurt demand for gold and silver coins. Sales of silver eagle coins hit a new record last month and gold coin sales in January reached their highest level in almost 19 months. "You can't get [silver coins]. They sell out," says legendary investor Jim Rogers. "Several mints have run out of coins...because everybody's worried about the future of the world." Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings and author of the new book, "Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets," tells The Daily Ticker that he "wouldn't rush in right now" to buy more coins, but he's not selling them either. Rogers says he'll buy more gold only if prices fall further (gold is currently trading 12% below its record high of $1,900). "Gold has been up 12 years in a row which is extremely unusual for anything," he notes. Gold and silver, like most commodities, are priced in U.S. dollars. Rogers is not a fan of the greenback but is an owner because other currencies, such as the Japanese yen, are collapsing. The yen has fallen to a 2-1/2 year low against the U.S. Dollar and has weakened against the euro as a result of the Bank of Japan's aggressive easy money policy. The man who heads the Bank of Japan, Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, said Tuesday he would step down March 19, three weeks earlier than planned. He was presumably under pressure to ease even more aggressively in order to reverse Japan's long-term deflation. Investors have turned bearish on the yen but Rogers says he is "contemplating buying some" because of the decline.
Jim Rogers started trading the stock market with $600 in 1968.In 1973 he formed the Quantum Fund with the legendary investor George Soros before retiring, a multi millionaire at the age of 37. Rogers and Soros helped steer the fund to a miraculous 4,200% return over the 10 year span of the fund while the S&P 500 returned just 47%.
