Silver is the most flexible metal on earth. We’re not talking about its malleability. We’re talking about how it is used.

Let’s take the point of view of those expecting a quick, painless recovery. In that case, silver is a great investment. It has many industrial uses other precious metals don’t. As the global economy kicks back into gear, we’ll see more demand from electronics manufacturers, battery makers and solar cell producers — all of which use silver in their products.

There are thousands of uses for silver in industry. It is used in water purification, medical machinery and, of course, jewelry. All of these industries will begin to pump out products again, which will put a strain on our limited aboveground silver reserves.

Now take a look at the world through the eyes of those thinking we are going to see a second collapse. The best place to store wealth is in precious metals. Of course, gold is the most common place to store cash, but silver is no slouch.

From 2006 until now, the physical holdings of silver funds have jumped 11-fold. That’s because more people than ever are interested in holding silver — or at least a fund that holds silver.

Silver is both a way to safely store your wealth and to spend it. Over the past several centuries, silver has been used as currency. In fact, our own U.S. dollar was once backed by silver. For those expecting the worst, silver is a must-own. These ETF holdings don’t even take into account how many people are stocking up on personal physical holdings.

There’s no shortage of demand. Everything is in place for another massive run-up. Gold already broke the $1,000 per ounce threshold last month. And it busted through its 2006 highs this week. Even so, silver is still lagging around $16.50.

David Morgan from Silver-Investor.com notes that when gold breaks through $1,000 and stays there for a length of time, silver will shoot up. He even went as far as to say silver will break through last year’s $21 high and hit $25 per ounce sometime in 2010.

Are we suggesting you buy silver? Well, yes. But we have a much better way for you to make money off this rise…

Buying shares of a major primary silver miner like Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW) would do the trick. It’ll certainly leverage its massive reserves and production against silver’s rise and return larger profits to shareholders than simply buying silver will. But even these gains will be miniscule compared with what you could see with small-caps.

We have an opportunity to get option-sized gains on silver’s rally without the downside or expiration hassles of actually buying options. By buying shares in a junior silver miner, like Hecla Mining (NYSE: HL) or Mag Silver (AMEX: MVG), we can take advantage of huge price swings without worrying about it expiring worthless, as options often do.

In just the last week, Hecla is up 15%, and Mag is up another 5%. As I write, these stocks are continually pushing into new 2009 highs ever day. When the silver boom gets traction in the market, expect small players like these to rocket as a result.

Sincerely,
Jim Nelson

Source: Finding Option-Sized Gains from $25 Silver

Gold’s been going up, knocking at the $1,000-an-ounce gate. Why exactly I can’t tell you… its principal bullish factor, inflation, being vortually non-existent in today’s deflationary market.

That leaves the fear of reckless U.S. Congress wrecking the dollar with huge new debt loads… and of an Administration that seems dead-set on crippling U.S. economic competitiveness for decades to come.

Valid fears, indeed, fueled by every redistributionist soundbyte slopping out of Washington.

Silver, too, has been gaining steadily. Our Hot Stock Confidential silver mining play Coeur d’Alene Mines Corp. (NYSE: CDE) is up 23%, Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW) is up 18%, and — after a horrendous 40%-drop ofer our May recommendation — Hecla Mining Company (NYSE:HL) has clawed back to a gain over 2%.

(HSC Members who used the dip to buy, as we kept recommending in our weekly updates, have almost doubled their money since May.)

We think there’s plenty more short-term potential. But despite my bullish long-term view on silver, the high volatility in the precious metals markets makes me inclined to take profits in the double-digit range, rather than hang on for the heftier triple-digit gains I foresee in the long term.

Source: Midas touch: Rising Gold Prices Guide Coeur d’Alene Mines, Silver Wheaton, Hecla Mining to Strong Gains

Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW) saw its first quarter profits fall to $15.1 million or $0.06 per share down from the $27.9 million or $0.11 per share tallied in the same period a year earlier. The company sold 3.2 million ounces of silver during the three-month period; up from the 2.8 million ounces sold in the same period of 2008 but silver sale revenues fell to $37.6 million from $48.9 million thanks to lower silver prices. Silver Wheaton ended the day down C$0.12 at C$10.14.

Uranium One reported a first quarter profit of $61.1 million or $0.13 per share, compared to a loss of $114.9 million, or $0.25 per share in the same period of 2008. Revenues came in at $43 million, compared with $22.5 million in the year earlier period. Production increased to 700,900 pounds. Uranium One closed at C$3.86 for a C$0.17 gain.

HudBay Minerals, with the consent of Lundin Mining, entered into an agreement to sell its entire 16.7 per cent stake in Lundin to GMP Securities for cash proceeds of approximately C$236 million, marking a gain before tax of $100 million. HudBay closed up C$0.02 at C$8.09.

Kinbauri Gold has flat out rejected a C$0.55 per share all cash offer from Orvana Minerals. The management team says that the previously announced transaction with Glen Eagle is moving towards completion. Under that proposal, Glen Eagle will invest C$32 million for a 45% interest in Kinbauri’s El Valle/Carles project in Spain. Kinbauri ended the day up C$0.205 at C$0.60, while Orvana lost C$0.02 at C$0.71.

A trend of two days up followed by some profit taking is rapidly developing. Will it continue? We shall see what Tuesday trading has in store.

Source: Resource Stock Roundup:Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW) has stepped up to the plate and is offering up 0.185 of its shares for each share of Silverstone Resources. The proposal values Silverstone at C$1.59 per share. In return, Silver Wheaton gains Silverstone’s silver stream agreements with Capstone Mining’s Minto copper-gold-silver mine in Yukon and its Cozamin copper-silver-lead-zinc mine in Mexico. Silver Wheaton closed the day at C$8.08 for a C$0.14 gain and Silverstone closed C$0.20 higher at C$1.45.

Largo Resources came out with an updated resource model for the Northern Dancer tungsten-molybdenum project in the Yukon. The latest tally shows measured resources of 30.8 million tonnes grading 0.114% WO3 and 0.030% molybdenum, indicated resources of 192.6 million tonnes grading 0.100% WO3 and 0.029% molybdenum and an inferred resource of 201.2 million tonnes grading 0.089% WO3 and 0.024% molybdenum. Largo ended the session down C$0.005 at C$0.075.

Donner Metals discovered massive sulphide mineralization in the Daniel-1 area just 16 kilometres northwest of Xstrata’s operating Perseverance mine and 26 kilometres northwest of the Matagami mill in Quebec. The discovery hole returned 3.95 metres grading 2.20 per cent copper, 0.09 per cent zinc, 8.8 grams silver per tonne and 0.25 gram gold per tonne. Donner closed flat at C$0.16.

Optimism that the worst of the economic turmoil is over had investors bidding up equities for the third straight session. We will see what Friday trading has in store.

Source: Resource Stock Roundup: Friday, March 13th, 2009

This from Karim:

President Obama has all-but sealed the fate of the U.S. dollar.

In doing so, however, his policies – no matter whether they’re forced upon him or deliberate – have opened the floodgates for gold and gold stocks.

In fact, they’re setting the stage for the biggest rally in gold’s history.

Over the past several months, we’ve told you why you should buy gold and highlighted one of the best gold indicators you can use to determine when to buy gold. But today, we’re simply going to show you how to profit from the yellow metal…

Three Reasons Why Gold Is Headed Higher

Okay, so Obama hasn’t specifically said, “Buy physical gold,” but  he’s certainly saying it with his actions instead. Here’s why the metal is headed higher…

1. The Printing Press: The U.S. government is printing a massive amount of money every day. In fact, we’re up to $2 trillion since last November. But here are the questions we should be asking…

~ Where’s this money coming from?
~ What is supporting this huge flow of new money?

America can print money today because the world believes that one day we’ll pay it back. But we haven’t paid down our debt in decades! In fact, over the past 30 years, our debt has increased 10-fold. (We have paid the interest though and that is better than most countries).

However, each new dollar we print is like adding a tiny little bit to the price of gold. And we are printing trillions of dollars.

1. The Currency Fear Factor: Gold is going higher because people are frightened that they won’t allow themselves to fall into the dollar/yen/pound/euro trap again.

For example, did you know that gold is at new highs against the Pound and Euro? Because those two currencies have fallen sharply against the dollar, the price of gold in both currencies is much higher than the last time gold was at this level (about this time last year).

1. More Educated Investors: With the huge amount of upheaval that the economy and stock market has faced over the past year or so, we now have a greater number of educated investors, who can plainly see that gold is the asset to hold. We wondered out loud why this wasn’t the case back in October, as investors seemed to ignore the dire news coming out each day and gold prices were stagnant. They’re not ignoring it now – and readers who took our advice to buy gold are doing very well.

But because more investors have jumped on the gold bandwagon now is exactly why you should not be buying gold right now.

That is, of course, unless you’re using a strategy that allows you to make some money or reduce your cost if the shares move down. I’ll give you an example in a minute…

Mind The Gap: Why You Should Set A Buy Alert At The $800 Level

Since mid November 2008, gold prices have pretty much moved up in a straight line.

Be warned: Like any investment, this cannot last forever.

Gold will sell off for a variety of reasons: Because they need money more than jewelry… because China and India are a little bit poorer… because investors sell for technical reasons.

Gold needs to fill a gap on a chart that goes back to the $800 level. And that is when you should buy gold. But not physical gold. Let me explain…

When Gold Hits $800 Again, Here Are Four Gold Investments You Should Buy

Rather than buying physical gold – as many people like to do – you should instead buy shares in gold mining companies. This includes…

~ Goldcorp (NYSE: GG)
~ Yamana Gold (NYSE: AUY)
~ Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX)
~ Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM)

You could even buy a silver-based play like Silver Wheaton (NYSE: SLW).

Here’s the thing with physical gold: Unless you’re counting on it to come in handy during something like a government coup where you need to flee the country (in which case, you’d better take a donkey with you, as it will be a heavy load), there are disadvantages to owning physical gold. Ones that result in less money for you.

For example, physical gold is difficult to store. It doesn’t pay dividends. And you can’t apply professional investment strategies like covered call writing to gain additional income.

Most importantly, gold shares move up by a factor of between two times and three times more than the percentage move for gold. So if gold prices move up by 10%, you can expect gold shares to move 20% to 30%, depending on what their cost is.

Everyone Is Buying Gold… But Not Everyone Is A Pro: Here’s The Pro Way To Profit From It

Okay, so once you’ve bought some gold mining shares, how do you start milking the investment for bigger profits than most other investors? I’ll show you…

The bottom line is that not only do you want to capture the price appreciation of your gold shares, you also want to sell call options against your stock to reduce your cost and take money off the table. Here’s how it works…

Let’s say you buy shares of Silver Wheaton for $7. Using a covered call strategy, where you sell one call option for every 100 shares you own, you can get back almost 6% in cash over the next seven months – and still have the chance to more than double your money.

Think of it as a free dividend that no one else knows about.

That’s the kind of stuff we do all the time in my Strategic Income service and every so often in our Xcelerated Profits Report (XPR) newsletter.

Gold Is Going Higher… Let It Take You Along For The Ride

The bottom line is this: Gold is going to move higher. Ultimately, much higher.

There will be opportunities to buy the metal along the way – and you’re going to hear a lot of people crowing about those opportunities.

But what they probably won’t tell you is that there’s a way of not just buying gold, but buying it through a simple strategy that pays you back and also mitigates some risk.

Understand though, that gold is not going to shoot to the moon tomorrow. That’s why we’ve taken a defensive posture on two of the gold stocks I mentioned above. One is a covered call play on Goldcorp, and the other is a spread play on Yamana Gold that has allowed us to take 95% of our money off the table, yet still left us with the chance to make over 4,000% on the money we have at risk.

The question is: Are you just going to “buy gold” because everyone else is? Or are you going to really profit from gold like the pros do?

Source: Obama Says, “Buy Gold”… Three Reasons Not To Listen

Silver Wheaton is one of a few well-known silver plays. And I’m behind silver for a lot of reasons…

Over the last 200 years, the mean gold/silver ratio has been 31.32. Today it’s surged to 69.

A simple reversion to the mean makes a great play here. For those of you without finance books handy, it means that silver is more likely to move up to maintain the average ratio.

But that’s not all…

Silver – A Consumption Commodity

Silver isn’t just a store of value, it’s a consumption commodity.

Globally, 63% of demand for silver comes from industry or photography. Only 27% ends up in coins, medals or jewelry. Silver goes into everything from batteries to ball bearings, electronics to electroplating, and medical devices to mirrors.

Only 11% of gold demand comes from industrial uses, and the gap is widening.

Researchers find new uses for silver constantly. For example, UK researchers found that coating medical equipment in silver ions prevents infections. Coating lumber with a fine silver mist makes it resistant to mold and mildew.

As industrial consumption increases, less of each year’s production will be available for holding as a precious metal.

However, this does make silver dependent on a consumption economy… which we seem to be lacking at the moment. Silver won’t really move until we get a turnaround in the global economy. But that doesn’t mean that Silver Wheaton Corp will have to wait that long.

Source: Silver Wheaton Corp (NYSE: SLW): Stock of the Day

• Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) Chief Executive Officer John Thain said the financial firm doesn’t need to raise more capital. “We have plenty of capital going forward and we don’t need to come back into the equity market,” Thain told Japan’s Nikkei news service. He also said he doesn’t have plans to sell or merge the company.

• German bank Bayerische Landesbank reported $6.7 billion in write-down from the subprime collapse, twice the amount of its previous estimate. Bayerische is the second-biggest state bank also said it fired Chief Risk Officer Gerhard Gribkowsky. “(It) still isn’t in the clear, but the risk shield will free up capital,” Dieter Hein, an analyst at Fairesearch GmbH & Co. in Frankfurt, told Bloomberg. “The Bavarians have deep pockets and won’t let the bank collapse.”

• Gasoline prices extended their record run at the pump yesterday (Thursday), as the national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.2 cent overnight to $3.289 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. The Energy Department expects gas prices to peak near $3.50 a gallon later in the spring. Many analysts think prices could rise as high as $3.75 or $4.

• Google Inc. (GOOG) has begun layoffs and other realignments at its DoubleClick unit, according to a media report on Wednesday. About 300 of the online advertising company’s 1,200 employees in the United States were laid off or placed in transitional roles today, Bloomberg reported on its Web site.

• Silver Wheaton Corp. (SLW) said yesterday (Thursday) its proven and probable silver reserves had nearly tripled to 346.4 million ounces as of December. The Canada-based mining company said the growth was driven by the acquisition of 25% of the life of mine silver production from the Penasquito Project in Mexico, and 100% of the life of mine silver production from the Stratoni Mine in Greece.

• Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) announced yesterday (Thursday) its March load factor increased to 87% from 85.7% during the same month the year prior, Thomson Financial reported. Traffic at the Eagan, Minn.-based carrier increased 2% to 7.16 billion revenue passenger miles, while capacity grew 0.6% to 8.24 billion available seat miles. The company’s stock was down 19 cents, a decline of 2%, to close at $9.21.

• Valero Energy Corp. (VLO) has completed repairs on its gasoline-making fluid catalytic cracking unit at its 210,000-barrel-per-day Delaware City, Delaware, refinery, Reuters reported. Repairs that were scheduled to be completed in early April at Valero’s 275,000 bpd Aruba refinery are still ongoing, a company spokesman announced yesterday (Thursday).

• The American Bankers Association reported that consumer loans at least 30 days past due increased across all categories of loans tracked, which include auto, credit card and home-equity loans. “It’s an indication of the degree of stress consumers are facing right now,” Nigel Gault, director of U.S. research at Lexington, Massachusetts-based Global Insight Inc., told Bloomberg News. “People overextended themselves, they took out loans they thought weren’t a problem as long as house prices kept rising.”