A new report from Five Star Equities investigates the recent surge of interest in silver investments and analyzes several stocks, providing equity research on the iShares Silver Trust ETF (NYSE: SLV) and Silver Standard Resources Inc. (TSX: SSO).
Just last week, iShares saw its biggest increase in holdings in five years, as holdings expanded by 572 metric tons to reach 10,735 tons overall.
The U.S. Mint recently announced that sales of American Eagle Silver coins for 2013 were temporarily suspended, as they had completely sold out. And so far this year, silver sales have already amounted to double 2012’s average monthly sales at 6,007,000 troy ounces.
From MarketWire:
“Some investors see poor man’s gold as a cheaper alternative to the yellow metal and are allocating to it,” said Mark O’Byrne, executive director of GoldCore Ltd. “Allocations to silver remain very small which suggests that the holdings could go higher resulting in higher silver prices again in 2013.”
Silver prices began rising at the end of 2008, and since that time, they’ve gone up almost threefold. So far this year, prices are up by about 3 percent, with the iShares ETF gaining 6.5 percent since the start of the year.
Meanwhile, Silver Standard produced 8.6 million ounces of silver over 2012, exceeding company guidance.
Silver is definitely having a good run even as gold continues to remain an attractive safe-hedge bet. More than likely, silver’s comparatively wider applicability across industries has a major role to play in this sustained high performance.
