ETF Bullion
As has been true in gold, investors have flocked to the convenience of a bullion-supported ETF. The iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV) now boasts over $10 billion in assets and holds 350 million ounces of silver in trust - enough to meet the industrial demands of the world for about a year. As it tracks the price of silver (minus a management fee and some ephemeral premium/discount from day to day trading), it is no surprise to see this ETF up more than 60% for 2010, trouncing the better-than 25% performance of SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) as of late December. (For related reading, check out Commodities: Silver.)
Market Digs the Miners
As miners are clearly leveraged to the underlying prices of the metals they mine, it is no great surprise to see that the miners did even better than the metal in 2009. Not only is this relatively typical within the industry (again, since miners are leveraged to the metal), but it may be even more so in silver as there are relatively few investable silver companies listed on U.S. exchanges. Even at the end of 2010, a phenomenally strong year for the sector, there are just eight stocks labeled as silver miners with market capitalizations in excess of $250 million.
Among the larger players, Silvercorp (NYSE:SVM), MAG Silver (NYSE:MVG) and Endeavor Silver (NYSE:EXK) led the charge. Even the worst-performing stock in the group, Silver Standard (Nasdaq:SSRI) handily beat the market for the year.
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