The price of gold has been hovering around record highs in recent months. In gold’s long shadow are silver exchange traded funds (ETFs), which have been no slouches themselves.
Holdings in ETFs that own physical silver reached a record high this month, surging to 13,027 tons. They have risen by 662 tonnes so far this year, an increase of around 5.4%, reports Chris Flood for The Financial Times.
Assets under management have risen to almost $8bn, up 18%, since the beginning of the year, helped by the rising price of silver.
It’s all because silver and silver ETFs tend to rise in price in tandem with gold. Silver is also much cheaper than gold, making it appealing on a pricing level. [Silver ETFs Are More Than Poor Man’s Gold.]
Barclays expects silver prices to average $19.20 an ounce in the fourth quarter of this year, however, some analysts say that this economic climate is challenging as mine supply is up and industrial demand is down. Analysts forecast that so long as gold manages to keep performance steady, silver prices are likely to rise for the rest of 2010.
Be careful, though: when gold prices fall, silver prices tend to fall even faster. Sign up for alerts to be notified when any trend ends (or new ones appear).
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- ETFS Physical Silver Shares (NYSEArca: SIVR)
- iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SLV)
Tisha Guerrero contributed to this article.