Silver has had a "manic-depressive" year, says Tatyana Shumsky in Barron's. Having hit record levels of near $50 an ounce last June, it fell almost 30% in five days. This year it has traded in a range around the $30 mark.
Silver has a "nasty" reputation among investors, given its extreme volatility, says Sterling Smith of Country Hedging. The market is very small and thus prone to big jumps when sentiment turns. To complicate matters further, silver is both an industrial metal and a traditional form of money and store of value, like gold.
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