We have seen a big surge in the prices of 3 major commodities recently - they are Gold, Silver and Crude Oil. Out of these 3, the first two, i.e. Gold and Silver, are classified as Precious Metal Commodities (as mentioned in our post on Commodity Classification. Among Gold and Silver, Silver has outperformed gold in terms of returns generated over a recent period of time. Seeing the big run up in silver prices with double digit returns, is it still the right time to invest in silver? If yes, then how can you or any common investor trade or invest in silver as a commodity? What if I am not bullish but bearish about returns from silver and want to short my investments in silver commodity? Let's see answers to some such questionsIn this article, we provide a list of Silver ETF's Exchange Traded Funds though which traders and investors can trade or invest in silver as a commodity

Silver ETF List: List of Silver ETF Exchange Traded Funds for Silver

Please note that although silver futures contracts are available for trading at major exchanges, they fall under the category of derivatives which have their own dynamics. Common investors who aren't familiar with the complex world of derivatives trading should go for simple products like ETF or Exchange Traded Funds, which are easy to understand. So here is the list of silver ETF's available for trading and investments and the various categories of it:

What are the various kinds of Silver ETF's available?
The silver ETF are commodity based ETF which some way or the other invest in silver. However, their methods of investments in silver may vary. The following categories are currently available:
1) Silver ETF with underlying being physical silver holdings: These are the kinds of Silver ETF's which actually buy physical silver as the underlying. The price of the ETF units reflect the average price of silver holding of the fund per unit.

2) Silver ETF which trade or hold Silver Futures contracts or other forms of silver derivatives: These are the Silver ETF's which actually put in the money in futures contracts or derivatives contracts of silver. They usually have some underlying silver based index as the benchmark index and the fund managers invests in silver contracts.

3) Leveraged Silver ETF: These are the ETF which usually give a return which is more than a single multiple of the silver price movements. For e.g., a particular leveraged silver ETF may provide you double the returns of the underlying price movements. This is the category of ETF's which also offers you a chance to play in opposite direction i.e. they offer you reverse returns as compared to the price movements of the underlying. For e.g., if the price of underlying silver goes up to 1%, the Short Silver ETF may give you -2% returns (loss). These are the kind of ETF's suitable for traders and investors who want to benefit on leveraged positions.

4) Silver ETF's which invest in companies engaged in silver based businesses, like silver mining, silver purification, etc.

What are the common Silver ETF Index?
There are a few Silver based underlying ETF's available like UBS Bloomberg CMCI Silver Total Return index.

What are the Silver ETF available for trading and investments?
Here is the list of Silver ETF available:
1) Silver ETF with underlying being physical silver holdings:
- iShares Silver Trust ETF: (SLV) This is from iShares and it holds physical silver as the underlying asset. Very common sivler ETF.

- ETFS Physical Silver Shares ETF(SIVR): Another common silver ETF which holds silver in physical form.

2) Silver ETF which trade or hold Silver Futures contracts or other forms of silver derivatives:

- Powershares DB Silver Fund(DBS): This Silver ETF trades in silver futures contracts

- E-TRACS CMCI Silver Total Return ETN(USV): Another silver based ETF (actually ETN), which has an underlying index of silver. This Fund tracks and tries to match the returns generated by the UBS Bloomberg CMCI Silver Total Return index.

3) Leveraged Silver ETF:

- Proshares Ultra Silver ETF(AGQ):
Being a leveraged Silver ETF, this fund tracks the daily returns of daily silver returns and gives a 200% to that of the daily price returns of silver.
The price of silver used for this purpose is the United States dollar price of silver bullion.

- Proshares Ultra Short Silver ETF(ZSL): The "short" silver ETF version of above. i.e. this leveraged silver ETF will give -200% returns to that of the daily price returns of silver.

4) Silver ETF's which invest in companies engaged in silver based businesses:

- SGlobal X Silver Miners ETF(SIL): This is the silver ETF which is foussed on sivler mining companies. It tries to track and match performance of the underlying Solactive Global Silver Miners Index