Silver is getting crushed in the pandemic-driven flight to safety — which might have created one of those blood-in-the-streets opportunities that contrarian investors dream about.

To understand why, lets start with the gold/silver ratio. The relationship between the prices of these two monetary metals tends to fluctuate within a wide band running from 20 to 90. A high reading implies that fear is the dominant emotion in the market, sending money toward the safest safe haven, which is gold, and away from silver, which is more volatile and therefore riskier.

Historically, a gold/silver ratio exceeding 80 implies that silver is extremely cheap relative to gold and will outperform it going forward.

Where is the ratio now? An all-time record high of 104.

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So…if past is still prologue — as always the big caveat in this world — silver at today’s price looks like a relatively low risk/high reward bet.

A lot of people seem to have the same idea, as silver eagle coin sales are through the roof:

2020 American Silver Eagle Bullion Coins Temporarily Sell Out As Demand for Silver Surges

(Coin News) – Inventories of 1-ounce, .999 fine American Silver Eagle bullion coins are temporarily depleted, the United States Mint announced Thursday, March 12.

Sales of the silver coins jumped this week by 1.57 million pieces, boosting their 12-day March total to 2,320,000 pieces — the highest for the month of March since 2016, and after just 650,000 pieces sold in February.

“Our rate of sale in just the first part of March exceeds 300% of what was sold last month,” the U.S. Mint told its bullion distributors Thursday.

“West Point is working diligently to produce additional inventory and once additional inventory is produced, we will again begin allocations.”

American Silver Eagle bullion sales for the year to date stand at 6,816,000 coins. Last year’s first three-month total for the silver coins reached 6,925,000 pieces, which included March sales of 850,000.

To summarize: In March 2019 the US Mint sold 850,000 silver eagles; in February of this year it sold 650,000; and in the first 12 days of this month it sold 2,320,000. At the moment there are no silver eagles left for sale.