A new high at the silver ETF

Like its big golden brother, the iShares Silver Shares ETF (NyseArca:SLV) is now regularly making new all-time highs, the latest move coming yesterday with the addition of 199 tonnes. This brings the net gain to 550 tonnes so far in 2009.
The price of physical versus paper forms of precious metals was a hot topic over the weekend at the Cambridge House Investment Conference. The shortage of coins and small bars last year combined with the fact that both of the major ETFs continued to add inventory as prices fell just adds to the discussion, however, not always in an entirely productive way.

Louis James of Casey Research was one of the more level-headed panel participants acknowledging that, while the physical market is a relatively small part of the overall bullion market, recent developments will have an outsized, long-term impact on investor psychology and the market in general.

Full Disclosure: Long SLV