A positive report indicating that manufacturing in the United States is in expansion mode helped give a boost to silver and its related exchange traded funds (ETFs), kicking off the month of September for the metal with a bang.

Silver, like any other commodity, is volatile and requires an understanding of the market before an investors jumps in. David Morgan of NuWire Investor states that among the things an you should do before investing in silver is get educated, do some research, know how much you have to invest with and stay on top of the market.

Additionally, one should know how to invest in silver. Silver ETFs make it easy to invest in this market.

• iShares Silver Trust (SLV), which is designed to track the silver and is backed by physical bullion. As a resulte, the fund is actively buying and selling the precious metal.  SLV is up 31.8% year-to-date and is trading above its 200-day moving average.

• E-TRACS UBS Bloomberg CMCI Silver ETN (USV), which is an exchange traded note (ETN) designed to track the performance of liquid forward curve of silver futures contracts. Since it’s an ETN and not an ETF, USV is a debt instrument backed by the credit of the issuer.  USV is up 38.1% year-to-date and above its 200-day moving average.

• PowerShares DB Silver Fund (DBS), which is designed to track futures contracts of silver and is up 31% year-to-date and trading above its 200-day moving average.

• ETFS Silver Trust (SIVR), which is designed to track the price of silver and is backed by physical bullion. A list of allocated metal bars and copies of the bar counts are available each day on the ETF Securities website. The fund launched in late July.

For more stories on silver, visit our silver category.

Kevin Grewal contributed to this article.

Tags: Commodity ETFs, Precious Metals, Silver, SLV, USV