Many investors rightly believe that the gold and silver markets are moved most by geopolitical events, monetary policy, shifting economic paradigms such as inflation or deflation, and a number of other factors - most of which are covered regularly in this newsletter. Few know that there is another aspect to gold and silver's price behavior and that is its seasonality, as shown in the charts immediately below. Seasoned physical precious metals investors often time their purchases during the so-called "summer doldrums" when business is quiet and prices are down. It doesn't always work out that the price trends higher in the second half of the year.