Yes! It was a 10% allocation a few months ago, but about 20% now mostly via ETPMAG, but with some small holdings in juniors. No intention to sell, my belief is that silver is being repriced and that with industrial uses increasing, it's likely that demand for physical is/will outstrip supply by some margin. Prices may moderate from today's highs as London and COMEX come online, but I'm in the camp of US$120-150+/oz sometime in 2026.

Pity ETPMAG can't be ordered on here for some reason?

Interesting take from someone who has been in the space for a long time:

https://x.com/abcampbell/status/2005124506130477500?s=48&t=s5tPHNfxgs8VuH3cYdUyyw

Disc: Held

@Seymourbutts Interesting times indeed.

Like @zerocool I hold ETPMAG in RL

I also hold SS1 - Sun Sliver whose main focus is in Nevada.

Today, on one hand, I'm feeling pretty happy with myself.

On the other hand I am feeling edgy. Please tell me I am being over the top here:

There has historically been a lot of manipulation of the Silver market. With silver being such an important part of the manufacturing industry and its use in the defence industry etc, I wonder what strings are being pulled behind the scenes by the "The Big Boys" and by governments.

If the price really goes nuts is an ETF like ETPMAG really a safe place to be?

Do share holders of a company like SS1 need to worry about Trump and his pals commandeering their assets? Gold and silver were confiscated from US citizens in the 1930's:

• Executive Order 6102: Signed on April 5, 1933, this order forbade the "hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States". It required all persons to deliver their gold to a Federal Reserve member bank in exchange for U.S. currency at the rate of $20.67 per troy ounce.

While the primary focus was on gold, a presidential proclamation issued in March 1933 also broadly forbade the hoarding of "gold or silver coin or bullion or currency". Later, in August 1934, the government also nationalized privately held silver bullion through a separate action, though the silver confiscation is a less commonly discussed aspect of this history. 

Repeal of the Ban

The restriction on private ownership of gold in the U.S. lasted for over four decades. It was finally repealed after President Gerald Ford signed legislation (Public Law 93-373) that made it legal for U.S. citizens to own gold coins, bars, and certificates again, effective December 31, 1974. 

It is already very interesting times in which we find ourselves. Are we in for some funny business? Is the funny business different this time? Is China weaponising Silver?

The restrictions on the movement of silver out of china start on the 1st of January, 2026. That's looming large.

Elon is not happy: “This is not good. Silver is needed in many industrial processes.”

In the short term, as always the Australian market seems to be looking for the direction that will come, when the markets open around the world in the coming hours.

@SquidInk Thanks for the link. A good read. Cheers

It's an S&P data thing @zerocool where they won't supply data for ETPs and some ETFs that they regard as ETPs. The difference is that ETPs are Exchange Traded Products rather than Funds, and ETPs cover all ETFs/ETPs that invest in physical commodities (like precious metals) rather than investing in the companies that produce those commodities. If an ETF or ETP does both (invests in companies and physical metal), then it can also be classed as an ETP rather than an ETF.

That said, that S&P rule is NOT applied equally across all ETF and ETP providers, so GOLD, QAU and NUGG are all recognised here due to S&P providing pricing and other data for them, however PMGOLD is not - and all four of those are physical gold bullion ETPs.

In the case of the Global X ETPs like ETPMPM, ETPMAG and ETPMPD, this site does recognise those codes but won't allow you to buy them here because there is no pricing data provided by S&P. With some other ETPs like PMGOLD the site doesn't even recognise the ticker code.

When this site does accept the code but does not display a share price graph (such as with ETPMAG & ETPMPM) that tells us that there is no pricing data being provided by S&P, so if there's no graph you usually won't be able to buy that stock here. This site may accept the buy trade but if the last traded price is not displayed on the order screen (and there has been no share price graph available here for that stock) then even if you are able to place the order, it won't go through, ever, unless S&P change their minds and start providing that pricing data.

It's not something @Strawman can fix here unless he changes data providers and they all have their own drawbacks I'm told. Sometimes it's better the devil you know.

But the short answer is it's because of a lack of data from S&P.

Super helpful explanation Bear, thank you!

Can't believe this topic was started 4 years ago

I used to hold ETPMAG but sold it a few years ago when I thought the price of $40 USD was silly. Subsequently the price halved after that before recently shooting towards all time highs recently. I'm sooo good at this game :(

Having said that I have lots of different silver coins and I remember buying a philipines silver proof coin from a distressed dealer at one of those coin fairs a long long time back for what $10-$15? I can't remember but anyway it has a picture of Ferdinand Marcos. Doing a google search and I heard it is worth a bit now...

I guess silver collectables like this will choke the supply a bit more as well. But there are lots out there also that aren't really collectable and that's what I'm worried about more, maybe that could provide some supply into the market...

The SLV ETF, has the current conditions:

1) very large spread (skew) between implied volatility of 2 month 25-delta put options less the implied of 2 month 25-delta call options. = 1.3

2) 30 day ATM Put implied volatility / Mean (10d, 20d, 30d Relative volatility) - This is the percentage spread between implied volatility of put options and Realized volatility. Currently = +38%

It means there is excessive crowding on the short side, which needs to be re-balanced in the short term.....1-3 weeks. This is based on 42macro data, calculated on a daily basis. I don't know about the call for squeezes over the years, but what I do know is this week is the first time it has triggered this signal since I began subscribing to 42Macro.

Lets see how it runs over the nextweek....

I am also intrigued by silver @Hands - however I only have limited exposure to silver via ownership of South32 (S32) shares. South32 own the Cannington mine in North West Queensland, one of the world's largest producers of silver and lead (and Cannington also produces zinc). See here: https://www.south32.net/our-business/australia/cannington

I do think that gold and silver have decoupled now. There used to be like a tether that dragged silver up when gold went up, and dragged silver down when the gold price fell for decent periods of time, but while they still often do move up and down at the same time, the ratio has broken down in recent years, so the moves that silver makes seem to have less to do with gold and the "store of wealth" argument, and more to do with silver's industrial uses. See here: https://www.marketreview.com/silver-as-store-of-wealth/

Source: Statista: 2020 Silver Demand by sector/purpose: https://www.statista.com/statistics/253345/global-silver-demand-by-purpose/

Source: Statista: 2020 Gold Demand by sector: https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/

Gold has far less industrial uses than silver.

That's based on 2020 but I don't think the uses for gold and silver have changed materially since then.

So my observations are that the drivers behind the silver price have changed by more than the drivers behind the gold price have over recent decades, and that has caused a sort-of uncoupling of the two prices, which used to have a fairly reliable relationship to each other, but now - not so much.

Source: https://www.bullionbypost.com/price-ratio/gold/silver/20year/

In light of that, I don't think investing in silver has the same arguments as investing in gold, and I mean that in terms of both owning physical gold/silver and/or having exposure to one/both of them via ETFs and/or companies that own deposits and produce and sell those metals (i.e. buying shares in gold and/or silver producing companies).

I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that there are different reasons to invest in the two precious metals, and a different set of reasons again for investing in platinum or palladium. And different again for diamonds. All have industrial uses, but I would imagine that none are held purely for investment (or "speculative" purposes) as much as gold is.

Here are the latest charts for both gold and silver in US$ for the past 5 years:

Source: https://goldsilver.com/price-charts/

Gold has clearly outperformed over the past 5 years, as it started at a lower point and finished at a higher point relative to silver. Gold has also exhibited less price volatility than silver over the 5 years.

But silver has certainly outperformed over some other timeframes. I think the charts we were looking at over in the gold thread only went up to the end of 2020, or thereabouts, because they were from an article published at that time, and the charts above are current as of today (Wednesday 11th May 2022).

Funny I mentioned Platinum and Palladium in my previous post in this thread along with Silver, Gold and Diamonds (as all having different demand drivers and reasons for investing in them) - then I read Marcus Padley's EOD (end-of-day) email this evening and he's listed Galileo Mining (ASX:GAL) as his "Speculative Stock of the Day". Have a look at this for a bonza daily move by a speculative base metals explorer:

I used to hold GAL shares back when I held IGO shares back before IGO sold their 30% of the Tropicana Gold Mine to Regis (RRL) and moved into lithium. I held GAL because they owned some tenements that were either adjoining or else in close proximity to IGO's tenements around IGO's Nova Nickel/Copper mine and the Nova-Bollinger mineralised system and also close to the Tropicana gold mine (which are all near Norseman in WA).  My thoughts at the time were that there was a reasonable chance that GAL would find something of value via their drilling and/or IGO would buy them.  However I accepted that Galileo were highly speculative - being explorers with no income other than what they could get via share placements and other CRs.

They closed at 20c/share yesterday, and at 63.5c/share today. +217.5% in a day is not bad at all. They've certainly found something, but the headline news is that it's mostly Palladium (Pd) and Platinum (Pt), plus some copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni) and some traces of gold (Au). The question of course is how big is the deposit? They've likely just found the edge of it, but there's a fair bit of that already priced in based on their share price more than tripling today.

For every one of those explorers who have a find like this there are probably another 20 or 30 that drift away to zero eventually.

And No, I'm unfortunately not currently holding GAL shares...

D'oh!!

And I won't be jumping on them after that move.

Today's announcement: (11-May-2022): GAL-Major-Palladium-Platinum-Discovery-at-Norseman.PDF