Details about ETFS Physical Silver Shares – SIV
Commodities Trading has been hot flavor of the season for now. Within that segment, the precious metal space has been a good bet as both Gold as well as silver has given fascinating returns over the last one year timeframe.
In this article, we will look at the Silver based ETF called ETFS Physical Silver Shares – SIV and provide a review, analysis and details for trading on silver through SIV ETF.

ETFS Physical Silver Shares-SIV: Review, Analysis, Details & Opinion

Let’s look at some basic details of Silver ETF first:
- This SIV silver ETF is backed by actual physical silver bullion held in vaults by the Custodian (HSBC Bank USA)
- It is listed on New York Stock Exchange - Arca
- Trades with a local ticker symbol - SIV, CUSIP - 26922X 107 , Bloomberg - SIVR US , Reuters - SIVR symbols
- Issued by ETF Securities, it trades in USD as its base currency
- Low expense ratio - as listed in their documents, Gross expense ratio is 0.45%; Net expense ratio is
0.30% apart from the brokerage commissions


What are the benefits of trading in Silver ETD SIV?
One good thing about this Silver ETF is that this is backed by actual physical silver bullion metal, rather then the derivatives/futures holding in silver.

Price movements track the actual spot price of silver, hence investors as well as traders can expect to have a very low tracking error in silver trading. Also, being an ETF, this offers tick by tick price movement for high frequency trading and arbitrage traders.

At the time of writing this article, the prices per unit for SIVR on 2nd Dec 2011 were quoted to be 31.68

What are the risks associated with trading or investing in Silver ETF SIVR?
There is a general commodity risk if one is trading or investing in commodities through ETF or Exchange Traded Fund route. Individual commodity prices are prone to high fluctuations and high volatility. By investing in a Silver ETF, you are taking the bet on silver prices which may fluctuate either way.

Apart from that commodities are also prone to geographical and political problems. What if there is a social unrest in countries which creates problems in silver supply.

This SIVR Silver ETF was introduced on 24 July 2009 and has been a good option for the investors looking for a easy and cost-effective way to invest as well as trade in Silver to benefit from silver prices.

How has silver prices performed in the recent past?
Here is a snapshot or Graphical chart of recent historical silver price movements Courtesy of PDF from etfsecurities site:

What are the future predictions about silver prices in the coming months?
That’s the million dollar question. No one can be certain about the future prices of anything.Irrespective of whether it is silver or gold or a particular stock price or any other asset, there is no guarantee at all.
one can only make a prediction about how the overall market, the global economic situation will move and where will the prices end up. As mentioned in the above section about the risk of investing in Sivler ETF, the investor or the trader has to bear the risk for taking a call in silver investment through SIVR ETF.
What this Sivler ETF SIVR does is provides you a cost effective mechanism for trading and tracking the silver prices - prices of silver can fluctuate either way.