How to ride the silver wave
Supply deficit makes an attractive case for investors
South Africans have a number of options when it comes to investing in silver, with at least three JSE-listed mining companies producing outside SA giving indirect exposure to the industrial and precious metal. Silver coins also remain an option for those wishing to track the commodity. The fundamentals for the price from a supply point of view are sound. In the recently released World Silver Survey 2017, GFMS, which is part of Thomson Reuters, noted mined silver production fell in 2016 for the first time since 2002, dropping 0.6% to 885.8-million ounces. Mines generating just silver account for 30% of supply, with 35% generated as a by-product from lead and zinc mines. The supply of scrap silver dropped to 1996 levels of nearly 140-million ounces, dragging overall global silver supply down by 32.6-million ounces to little more than 1-billion ounces. This left the market in its largest deficit in three years of 147.5-million ounces, pushing the silver price up 9.3% in 2016, the first...
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