It is a familiar scenario with physically-backed commodities exchange traded funds. Even as gold prices and ETFs fall, often taking silver futures and funds along for the ride, investors jettison their gold holdings while sticking with and/or adding to silver positions.
Over the past month, the iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SLV) and the ETFS Physical Silver Shares (NYSEArca: SIVR) are down 5% apiece, which is actually better than the 5.4% shed by the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD). However, that tumble is not chasing investors from silver ETFs.
“The tonnage of silver bullion held by the world’s six largest silver ETFs increased by 104 tonnes, or 0.6 percent, to a record 17,135.04 tonnes on Friday,” reports Frank Tang for Reuters. As Reuters notes, the uptick in holdings at silver ETFs was led by a 1% for SLV.
For the month ended Sept. 12, SLV added almost $285 million in new assets, almost dollar-to-dollar with the $280.4 million investors pulled from GLD, the largest gold ETF. SIVR has added nearly $2 million in new assets over the same period. [Gold Bugs Depart ETFs]
Since the start of the third quarter, SLV has added $237.5 million in new assets, but investors have not been rewarded for their devotion to silver ETFs as SLV has dropped 7.2% over that time. As that performance highlights, silver has been weak. So weak in fact that some technical analysts are forecasting a decline to $15 for the white metal, which would be more than 16% below SLV’s Monday closing price. [Problems for Silver ETFs]