iShares Silver Trust(NYSE:SLV): It s been a frustrating year for investors in the precious metals space, with the price of gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) being two of the only asset classes that are negative for the year. This is especially frustrating for investors in silver than didn t take profits into the proclaimed silver squeeze earlier this year, which sent silver prices soaring overnight, but those gains were given up almost immediately. Despite the pathetic year-to-date return, past performance is not indicative of future performance. In fact, the metals sector typically bottoms just when the majority have finally thrown in the towel and it s seen its worst performance in years on a trailing-1-year basis. This suggests that the bottom is likely already in for silver at $21.00/oz. Let s take a closer look below:
Silver Investing: China Launches New Benchmark
Just yesterday China launched Shanghai Silver Benchmark Price Trading. Now that’s a mouthful. The new benchmark price will have the symbol SHAG on the Shanghai exchange and will trade for two short time periods daily, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The trading unit will be 15kg per share of SHAG, but will doubtless be translated into the price per troy ounce for comparison to other world silver prices.
What it means is that the Chinese silver market will have more input into the world price of silver. And, the world will get a better view of silver demand in Asia.