While status quo-huggers are all too happy to point out gold and silver's lack of utter exuberance amid this week's carnage, perhaps they need to re-comprehend the difference between a heavily manipulated 'paper' market and the surging demand for physical precious metals that is evident in the 20-plus percent premium - and rising - being paid for silver bullion currently...

Chart: GoldChartsRUs.com

"One important aspect of the physical market that is often overlooked is the premium it commands over spot price. Right before the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, the spot Silver price fell as low as USD 9 per oz., whereas the price of a 1 oz. Silver Eagle was around USD 17 on the wholesale market and even higher on the retail market! That’s a price premium of 188%!

That means that if you had held 100 oz. of paper Silver, you might have had to liquidate that for USD 900 (assuming the market was not halted for trading then), whereas if you had held 100 pieces of 1 oz. Silver Eagle coins, you would have gotten at least USD 1700 for them if not more."

BullionStar, The Difference in Paper and Physical Gold and Silver in times of Crisis