[ Home | Book Recommendations ]

"Barclay's Global Investors is applying to list 13 million shares backed by 129 million ounces of silver in an arrangement similar to that for the streetTRACKS Gold Trust shares. Under this structure, silver will be held in the Bank's vaults and each share will represent 10 ounces of silver."

There are only 22 pure silver mines around the world. For 15 years straight, they've fallen short of meeting total silver demand. In the last two years alone, they were off by nearly 76 million ounces.

Silver is so scarce the industries that use silver in their business banded together and blocked Barclays Global Investors from launching its ETF, late last year.

Because many other forces drive the price of silver, specifically, even beyond those driving megatrends the white metal shares with gold.

Just take a look...

The supply and demand dynamic for silver looks even better right now than it does for any other metal, including gold and platinum, because more and more industries want silver, but fewer mines are producing it

Maybe you've heard, however, that the huge rise in digital photography spells doom for silver demand. Not so. In fact, only 8% of world silver demand ever came from the photography market

What many amateur investors don't realize is that silver is one of the best electrical conductors in the world. But it doesn't corrode like other metals. Virtually all modern electrical switches, from batteries to computer circuit boards, use silver-based solder

That means you need silver to make digital cameras. And iPods. And laptop computers. Not to mention dishwashers, microwaves, televisions, washing machines, refrigerators and more

The electronics industry alone uses up 44% of all the silver produced each year

You need silver to make solder for most metal pipes, because it's also temperature resistant. And smooth. Which has also hiked up silver demand because it's an excellent lubricant for jet engines

Silver has anti-bacterial properties too. The water you drink or use to fill your pool was filtered using silver. Silver is used to help process almost all pre-packaged food too

The $300-billion plastics industry couldn't exist without silver. It's the perfect chemical catalyst. You use it to make everything from adhesives and heat-resistant surfaces to toys, car parts and more

Even the U.S. Mint churned through 15.5 million ounces of silver in the most recent year on record, to make coins and medals. We haven't even touched on jewelry demand, which sucks up another 30% of the total annual silver production.

today, most of the U.S. silver stockpile is gone. And other governments are running low too. And here's something else: Unlike gold, when silver goes into industry, it gets used up. Burned away. And that's happening now at a rapid pace.

The world once had about 2.2 billion ounces of silver aboveground.

Now we have only about 300 million ounces. In other words, total world silver supply has plummeted by over 86% just in the last few years... while silver demand has gone UP!

What if silver cost one-fifth the price of gold? It would skyrocket over 1,124%!