iShares Silver ETF Gets Another Competitor (SLV, SIVR, DBS, USV, AGQ, ZSL)

In the world of metals and commodity ETF products, the iShares Silver Trust (NYS: SLV) has been the go-to ETF for traders wanting exposure to the price of silver as it has an objective to reflect the price of silver owned by the iShares Silver Trust after the fund’s expenses and liabilities.  There are other silver ETF products that traders and investors can use, but a new competing ETF has launched today.  The ETFS Silver Trust (NYSE: SIVR) has now launched and has issued shares backed by physical silver SIVR for NYSE listing.

There is a fairly high benchmark here and it will be some time before traders and investors can determine whether this is a success or not.  That measure will come through volume and liquidity.  The iShares Silver Trust (NYS: SLV) trades on average 8.8 million shares.  At $13.57, its 52-week trading range is $8.45 to $17.68 and its market cap is $3.9 billion.

PowerShares DB Silver (NYSE: DBS) is far smaller and far thinner in trading volume.  At $24.67, its 52-week range is $14.81 to $33.00 and market cap is listed as almost $83 million.  This one only trades almost 100,000 shares on an average day.  There is also the E-TRACS UBS Bloomberg CMCI Silver ETN (NYSE: USV), although this one is so small and thinly traded that we do not even rank it very high.

Then there is leveraged-ETF trend seen in the the Ultra Silver ProShares (NYSE: AGQ), which is double-leverage against silver bullion.  At $41.22, its 52-week trading range is $21.60 to $57.32 and its average volume is roughly 250,000 shares.  Its double-short inverse is the ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF (NYSE: ZSL).

Despite the “four letter ticker” that might make you think this is a NASDAQ traded instrument, it trades on the NYSE.

JON C. OGG
JULY 24, 2009