Silver exchange traded funds rose 2% in premarket trading Tuesday but have lagged gold ETFs lately on weak manufacturing and employment numbers.
Silver ETFs have recovered somewhat after falling about 7% last week.
“Poor manufacturing data in the U.S. and the Eurozone and disappointing U.S. nonfarm payrolls weighed on the silver price last week, highlighting the metal’s relatively high sensitivity to the global growth cycle,” ETF Securities said in a June 6 report.
ETFs that invest in silver include ETFS Physical Silver (NYSEArca: SIVR), iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SLV) and PowerShares DB Silver (NYSEArca: DBS). They are still up nearly 20% for 2011 despite the huge sell-off in early May.
“Softer PMI indicators in Europe coupled with sharp declines in U.S. manufacturing data and a surprisingly small gain in U.S. jobs drove the silver price down 7% last week. With industrial applications making up just over 46% of silver demand in 2010 according to GFMS data, the silver price tends to be highly sensitive to perceptions of global economic growth,” ETF Securities said. “While this benefited silver through much of 2009 and 2010, the recent weakness of global growth indicators has worked against the metal.”
Gold ETFs
ETFs tracking gold prices have fared relatively better in recent weeks. Gold futures were trading around $1,550 an ounce on Tuesday morning.
Last week, rising concerns about Greece defaulting on its debt and weak global growth data “drove investors into the perceived safety of gold,” wrote Daniel Willis and Nicholas Brooks at ETF Securities in the metals report.
“The market is now focusing increasingly on ‘when and how’ a restructuring will occur rather than ‘if’ it will take place,” they said. “Concerns about European sovereign risk together clear signs of softening global growth have caused investors to shun cyclical and risk assets and move into perceived safe havens. Gold has been a key beneficiary of this trend.”
SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD) was up 8.5% year to date through June 3, according to Morningstar.
Full disclosure: Tom Lydon’s clients own SLV and GLD.