We talk a lot in this column about the importance of owning precious metals… and often for the sake of convenience, I lump gold and silver together in the same category. But while the two share similar characteristics as excellent inflation hedges and stores of value, silver has unique fundamentals worth considering.

For starters, while the entire gold market is small, the silver market is even smaller. It’s tiny. As such, silver is highly volatile and even more susceptible to wild price swings than gold.