Gold exchange traded funds are captivating investors in 2015. A 10.3% gain by and $1.23 billion of new assets added to the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD) confirms as much.
As is often par for the course with gold’s upside, silver and the relevant exchange traded funds are following along. Entering Thursday, three silver ETFs ranked among this year’s top 10 non-leveraged ETFs and that trio does not include thePureFunds ISE Junior Silver Small Cap Miners/Explorers ETF (NYSEArca: SILJ), which has impressed in its own right with a year-to-date gain of 11.4%. [Surprises From Silver ETFs]
The iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SLV) and the ETFS Physical Silver Shares (NYSEArca: SIVR) are each up nearly 17% to start 2015 as silver is off to its best start to a new year since 1983. Some market observers believe the silver trade could be in the early innings.
“Silver dropped 19.7% in 2014 after plunging a brutal 35.6% in 2013. Such dismal performance naturally left silver universally despised, the pariah of the investment world. But that is changing,” writes Adam Hamilton for Investing.com. “Both the levels of SLV’s physical-silver-bullion holdings and American speculators’ aggregate long and short contracts in silver futures reveal silver is almost certainly embarking on a major new upleg. Each of these critical capital pipelines into silver shows great room for more investor and speculator buying. And that will come as gold continues recovering on balance, unwinding its extreme anomaly of recent years.”
Unfortunately, some investors are missing out on the silver rally. After remaining loyal to silver ETFs last year, even as the white metal and gold struggled, some investors apparently grew frustrated waiting for SLV and SIVR to turn for the better. Since the start of the year, SLV and SIVR have lost $196 million and $5 million in assets, respectively. [Good Technical News for Silver ETFs]