In a surprising twist, younger Americans are more inclined than older ones to invest in gold and silver in 2020, a new survey has revealed.

A new survey of 1,500 Americans aged between 18 and 65+ assessing their gold or silver ownership found that a majority (84 per cent) don’t own either. But break the responses down by age and gender, and non-owners are the highest (89 per cent) among women aged 45 to 54. Who’d have thought it?

AGold IRA, the financial magazine conducting the survey, did the same poll last year and has found that owning the precious metals has somewhat waned in 2020. Given that COVID-19 has ushered in this year, the authors say this could simply mean that the average American is refraining from investing further because of the uncertainty.

In the larger market, gold has certainly been on fire, reaching $2,000 an ounce this summer and up by 17 per cent in dollar terms for the first half of this year.

Another surprise of the 2020 poll is that younger Americans now seem more inclined to embrace gold and silver ownership. Millennials comprised the largest demographic indicating ownership of gold or silver, or both (7.5 per cent of those between 25 and 34 years old said they owned both).

Eclipsing older Americans as the most inclined to invest in the two precious metals, the result rather scuppers the notion that those close to or already enjoying retirement look to gold or silver as the typical hedge in difficult economic times.

Also revealing is that silver turned out to be more popular than gold in 2020, gaining a particular edge among younger male Millennials. The survey found that men in general registered the highest ownership of siliver over gold at 7.4 per cent. Additionally, when filters were applied to 18 to 24-year-old males, 10.7 per cent in this age group said they owned silver not gold, almost twice the survey average. A siliver preference dropped to 2.2 per cent among females in that age group, and was the least popular response for this demographic.

Among all respondents, 5.1 per cent said that they owned silver, but not gold; and conversely, 4.3 per cent said that they owned gold, but not silver.

According to the survey, a combined 10.8 per cent of Americans own gold, and a combined 11.6 per cent own silver.

Amine Rahal, CEO of Gold IRA Guide, says the survey is interesting "especially when it comes to who chooses to own only gold and silver. Also intriguiging is the fact that more Americans own silver over gold."