The price of silver closed at over $30 per troy ounce on Friday up from $16.822 at the beginning of 2010. From a recent Wall Street Journal story on silver:
Among the four major precious metals—the others being gold, platinum and palladium—silver is up 74% this year, on track to be the second-best performing commodity after palladium, which is up 86%. Gold, by contrast, is up 26% and copper just under 28%.
Prices are rising despite oversupply and a lackluster recovery in industrial demand. Many analysts expected those factors would keep a lid on prices in 2010. What they didn’t expect was an overwhelming flow of money into the market from investors eager to ride a commodities rally.
Silver closed at an all-time high in January 1980 at $48.70 an ounce, or $129.32 adjusted for inflation.
The Top Silver Producers in 2009
Source: The Wall Street Journal
(Click to enlarge)
The top 20 silver producing companies in 2009 are listed below:
| S.No. | Company | Ticker | Country | Output in 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | BHP Billiton | BHP | Australia | 42.0 |
| 2 | KGHM Polska Miedz | KGHMF.PK | Poland | 38.7 |
| 3 | Fresnillo plc | FNLPF.PK | Mexico | 37.9 |
| 4 | Pan American Silver | PAAS | Canada | 23.0 |
| 5 | Cia. Minera Volcan | VCANK.PK | Peru | 21.2 |
| 6 | Hochschild Mining | HCHDF.PK | Peru | 18.8 |
| 7 | Coeur dAlene Mines Corp. | CDE | USA | 17.7 |
| 8 | Sumitomo Corp. | SSUMY.PK | Bolivia | 17.6 |
| 9 | JSC Polymetal | Russia | 17.3 | |
| 10 | Kazakhmys plc | KZMYY.PK | Kazakhstan | 16.9 |
| 11 | Cia. de Minas Buenaventura | BVN | Peru | 16.0 |
| 12 | Kinross Gold Corp. | KGC | Canada | 14.0 |
| 13 | Southern Copper Corp. | SCCO | USA | 13.2 |
| 14 | Teck Resources | TCK | Canada | 13.0 |
| 15 | Goldcorp Inc. | GG | Canada | 12.8 |
| 16 | Xstrata Zinc | XSRAF.PK | Switzerland | 12.7 |
| 17 | Industrias Penoles | IPOAF.PK | Mexico | 11.8 |
| 18 | Eti Gumus, A.S | Turkey | 11.2 | |
| 19 | Hecla Mining | HL | USA | 11.0 |
| 20 | Yamana Gold | AUY | Canada | 10.5 |
Source: The Silver Institute
ETF: iShares Silver Trust (SLV)
Disclosure: No positions
