Silver exchange traded funds are the toast of the town today as the white metal is trading close to its highest levels in a month as the U.S. dollar careens to multi-month lows.
With the PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSEArca: UUP), which tracks the U.S. dollar movements against the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc, down 1% today and trading at its lowest levels since January, the top six non-leveraged ETFs in terms of percentage gains are silver funds.
The iShares Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SLV) and the ETFS Physical Silver Shares (NYSEArca: SIVR), both backed by physical holdings of the white metal, are each up nearly 4% on volume. Volume in SLV, the largest silver ETF, is roughly 50% above the trailing 90-day average while SIVR’s Wednesday turnover is approximately 60% above average. [Silver ETFs Looking Good]
On the supply side, silver miners are finding less deposits and producers are expanding into new projects, which suggests that silver could be in shorter supply ahead. Additionally, there is the money valuation angle. As central banks keep dumping money into the world economy, paper money becomes less valuable and hard assets, like silver, become a better store of wealth.
Last year, silver mine output grew just 5% to 877.5 million and there are fears such tepid production will not keep pace with demand from industries such as solar and technology.
SLV and SIVR are each just pennies from crossing their 200-day moving averages, a technical indicator that neither ETF has closed above since August. With Wednesday’s gains, the two physical silver ETFs are up more than 5% over the past month.
“On a short-term basis Silver is working on a breakout of 2015 resistance after potentially putting in a base over the past 6-months. Should the GDXJ/GDX and Silver/Gold ratio both turn up, it would be a positive sign for this very hard hit sector,” according to Chris Kimble of Kimble Charting Solutions.