Silver Investing

Chart of Silver over the last 10 years provided by Kitco

Investing in Silver 

Physical Metals

Perhaps the safest way to invest in Silver is through purchasing the physical bullion. I listed a few websites where you can purchase under the 'Purchasing' tab.

One of the most popular ways to invest in Silver bullion in the United States is with the 1 ounce American Silver Eagle. This coin is internationally known and can be traded in most countries.

 

You can purchase them individually, in stacks of 20 or in a 'Monster box' of 500. 

 

100% Silver bars are also popular and they are minted in many sizes, weights and designs. You will typically see 1 ounce, 5 ounce, 10 ounce bars. 

Englehard and Johnson-Matthey are two Silver refiners that produce bars in various sizes and are standard names the industry.

ETFs

There are a few securities/stocks that trend with the price of Silver:
PSLV - Sprott Asset Management (Backed by physical Silver)
SLV - iShares Silver ETF (Backed by physical Silver)
SIVR - ETFS Silver Trust (Backed by physical Silver)
DBS - PowerShares DB Silver Fund (Fund) is based on the Deutsche Bank Liquid Commodity Index - Optimum Yield Silver Excess Return™ (Index) and managed by DB Commodity Services LLC. The Index is a rules-based index composed of futures contracts on silver and is intended to reflect the performance of silver
AGQ - Ultra Silver ProShares (Double leverage on Silver Bullion)
USLV - VelocityShares 3x Long Silver 3x leveraged long and inverse positions linked to the S&P GSCI Silver Index.
USV - UBS E-TRACS CMCI Silver Total Return is designed to track the performance of the UBS Bloomberg CMCI Silver Total Return, less investor fees. The CMCI Silver TR measures the collateralized returns from a basket of silver futures contracts. The commodity futures contracts are diversified across five constant maturities from three months up to three years.

Short Silver
ZSL - ProShares Ultra Short Silver (Double-short inverse is the ProShares UltraShort Silver)
DLSV - VelocityShares 3x Inverse Silver allow traders to manage silver exposures using a 3x leveraged inverse positions linked to the S&P GSCI Silver Index.

One of the advantages of owning shares is liquidity, you can buy or sell these any time the US Stock market is open.

 Another security to note is CEF which is the Central Fund of Canada. As of June 2010, it holds 55% Gold, 42.5% Silver and 2.5% Cash or Other net assets. Google Central Fund of Canada to find their exact holding between Silver and Gold as it does change periodically.

Miner Index
SIL - ETF of silver miners from GlobalX Funds that started in April, 2010.  Investing in an index of Silver miners has less risk than owning an individual mining company.

Individual Silver miners. 
These carry the most risk, but can provide the most reward.  By investing in individual miners, you are exposed to market volatility, sector volatility and company volatility.

If investing in the markets has a risk level higher than you can tolerate, you may want to consider dollar cost averaging into the physical metals each month. Purchase what you can afford each month on Gold or Silver coins regardless of the price. It is a great way to start out with your investment in Gold and Silver. The money you spend each month on precious metals should be for the intermediate to longer term (2 years +) and considered part of your savings account.

Major Silver Miners

Pan American Silver - PAAS
Silver Wheaton - SLW (Mining financing company)
Coeur dAlene- CDE
Fresnillo - European
Silver Standard - SSRI
Stillwater - SWC
First Majestic Silver - AU

Mid / Junior Silver Miners 
Mag Silver - MVG
Hecla Mining - HU
Alexco - AXU
Silvercorp Metals - SVM
Endeavour Silver - EXK

There are other smaller Silver Miners that are not listed on the American stock exchanges that are Canadian companies. They trade on the Canadian markets and have OTC/Pink Sheets listings. These stocks can be very volatile and the daily volume can often be low at times which makes the purchasing and selling difficult. A few of the notables are:

Fortuna Silver
Impact Silver
Avino Silver
Silvercrest Mines
Golden Minerals
Orko Silver
Bear Creek Mining
Sabina Silver
Minco Silver
Minera Andes
Revett Minerals
Esparanza Silver
Great Panther Silver

Silvermex
Scorpio Mining
Excellon Mining
US Silver
Tahoe Resources

Past Blog Posts

Here is a post on the ETF SLV that provides technical analysis using the fibanocci algorithm for the 2010 year. Based on the analysis, Silver may run up to $32 provided that the bull run in precious metals will continue:
Silver-to-32-ounce?

Additional noteworthy posts and links
Denver Gold Conference - Listen to mining companies plans for the future
SLV - 2 year chart technical analysis (From August 2010)