iShares Silver Trust

The Sprott Physical ETF (PSLV) and the iShares Silver Trust (SLV) are among the popular ETFs to get exposure to silver. Which is a better stock to buy?

Silver has been falling over the past few years, despite surging demand for its industrial use. Fundamentally, silver seems to be strong due to rising demand and a year-over-year shortfall in its supply.

Rising correlation across asset classes is a sticky problem that investors face while investing in today’s markets.

During the past week, average hourly earnings, excluding the farming industry, were below analysts’ expectation of 0.10%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (or BLS) developed the U.S. CPI in 1913 to measure the change in prices.

Gold certainly can be an inflation hedge, and it has worked in the past. Obviously, one of the reasons gold has been weak of late is that people are becoming less concerned about inflation.

A cap was put in place to stop the currency’s appreciation. An appreciating local currency is detrimental to exporters.

Increased shareholder returns were the main motivation behind the Newmont Mining and Goldcorp merger.

Barrick has reduced its debt more than 57% in the last four years from $13.4 billion at the end of 2014 to $5.7 billion at the end of 2018.

Gold’s price dipped 0.13% to $1,312.8 per ounce on May 9. The fall in gold was extended for a number of reasons.

Besides ongoing geopolitical concerns, a crucial factor that gold keeps looking to for directional moves is the US dollar.

A quick look at the relationship between the two core precious metals, gold and silver, could also be helpful in the analysis of the overall precious metals market.

All four precious metals had an up day on December 20, 2017. Gold increased 0.43% on the day and closed at $1,267.80 per ounce.

In this article, we’ll discuss the gold-silver, gold-platinum, and gold-palladium spreads. These three spreads stand at 77.9, 1.38, and 1.23, respectively.

Precious metals and miners saw some relief on December 13 after the Fed raised rates as expected. Sibanye Gold (SBGL), Aurico Gold (AUQ), and Goldcorp (GG) rose 3.5%, 3.6%, and 5.8%, respectively.

Gold, silver, and platinum all had a down day on Tuesday, December 13, mainly due to speculations over the Federal Reserve’s pending interest rate decision.

In this part of the series, we’ll look at the gold-silver spread, the gold-platinum spread, and the gold-palladium spread.

The possible interest rate hike is taking a lot of market participants’ attention. Many policymakers are also focusing on inflation numbers.

The US stock markets were closed on Thursday, November 23, 2017, for Thanksgiving, and the next day (Black Friday) was quite slow for precious metals. Gold played in a narrow range that day.

Besides the impact of interest rates, there are also other global indicators that could play on precious metals—the most important being the US dollar.

Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium have a five-day trailing loss of 0.67%, 0.44%, 1.1%, and 1.5%, respectively.

As of October 19, Sibanye Gold, Agnico Eagle Mines, Silver Wheaton, and Randgold Resources had implied volatility readings of 63%, 33.6%, 30.8%, and 25%.

Gold futures for September expiration have risen ~3.9% over the past one-month period. Silver, platinum, and palladium have followed the same track as gold.

The gold-silver spread measures the price of one ounce of gold in relation to silver.

Silver has seen a five-day trailing loss of 2.6%, while gold and platinum fell 1.7% and 1.9%, respectively.

Over the past year, silver has been very volatile compared to the other three precious metals. Silver was the highest among precious metals in mid-April 2017.

India’s trade gap increased 173.5% on a year-over-year basis to ~$13.3 billion in April 2017, beating the market’s expectations of an ~$12.8 billion gap.

When analyzing the performance of a metal, investors should look at its fundamentals. In this series, we’ll look at various metrics for silver and other precious metals.

Precious metals were doing considerably well until the first half of April 2017. As investors’ risk appetites revived, haven assets slumped. Among these metals, silver has plummeted the most.

Precious metals had a bright first quarter, which ended March 31, 2017. Gold rose about 8.4%, marking its best quarter in almost a year.

Silver has performed slightly better than gold and platinum on a year-to-date basis.

All four precious metals witnessed a rise in price on Monday, March 20, as the US dollar slipped to its six-week low.

Gold prices for February expiration fell on the last trading day of the year. Gold fell 0.53% and closed at $1,152 per ounce on December 30, 2016.

Demand for Gold Withstood Recent Selloff Despite the drop in the gold price in October, demand for gold bullion-backed exchange traded products (ETPs) held firm. Inflows have no doubt slowed down compared to earlier in the year (0.4% increase in holdings in October compared to 12% and 6% increases in February and June respectively), but […]

Gold bullion ended September at $1,315.75 per ounce for a 0.5% gain while gold stocks experienced more positive returns. The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index[1. NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index (GDMNTR) is a modified market capitalization-weighted index comprised of publicly traded companies involved primarily in the mining for gold] (GDMNTR) posted a 3.8% gain, while […]

Gold has fallen below $1,300 per ounce and broken below the longer-term trend line that had been established this year.

Gold gave steady returns to investors for the first two months of 2016 as unrest and instability continued in the markets. However, March started with some ups as well as downs for gold.

It’s important to understand not only miners’ geography but also their revenue composition in terms of commodity exposure.

Deleveraging can affect gold and other bullion prices, as well as exchange-traded funds such as the iShares Gold Trust ETF (IAU) and the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV).

The cash cost has been the dominant measure of the gold mining cost structure. It represents what the mine costs are for each ounce of gold.

Drop in silver prices among other precious metals With global commodity and metal prices falling in the volatile month of August, silver has been no exception. The economic slowdown in China has been slowing the demand across various commodities. Precious metals like gold and silver have been under pressure. The strength in the US dollar […]

So far, Barrick has achieved 90% of its 2015 debt reduction target of $3 billion, mainly thanks to asset monetization.