iShares Silver Trust Exchange Traded Fund Added 572 Tons of Silver, Silver Dollar Values Prices Skyrocket

Stoughton, WI -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/30/2013 -- Assets in iShares Silver Trust, the biggest exchange-traded fund for the metal, climbed the most in five years as more investors are seeking an alternative to gold.

Holdings jumped 572 metric tons, or 5.9 percent, the biggest increase since December 2007, according to data around the iShares website today. BlackRock Inc. (BLK), the manager of the fund, confirmed the actual figures. The metal worth $579 million boosted assets to 10,735 tons, the most since May last year.

Global investment through just about all silver-backed exchange-traded products is a record 19,114 tons, or about nine months of mine output, according to data compiled by Barclays Plc. Steps by policy makers in the U.S. to The far east and Europe to boost economies attracted investors to precious metals upon bets that stimulus may stoke inflation.

“Some investors see poor man’s gold as a cheaper alternative to the precious metal and are allocating to it,” Mark O’Byrne, executive director of Dublin-based GoldCore Ltd., a brokerage that offers and stores bullion coins and bars, said by e-mail today. “Allocations to silver remain very small which implies that the holdings could go higher resulting in higher silver prices again in the year 2013.”

Silver will rise as much as 28 percent to $40.25 an ounce this year, based on the median of 49 analysts, traders and investors estimates compiled in December. The metal for immediate shipping was at $31.3325 an ounce today in London.

Silver almost tripled since the end of 2008, and it is up 2.9 percent this year compared with a 0.2 percent decrease in gold and 9.4 percent jump in platinum.

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