Silver ETF planned for London Stock Exchange

The Financial Times reports that a silver tracker fund (ETF) is expected to launch soon on the London Stock Exchange. According to the article, "LSE silver tracker fund in the offing", the silver linked exchange traded fund will be introduced by ETF Securities within the next month.

The product is seperate to the silver-backed ETF Barclays Global Investors has filed approval for with the SEC.

"Unlike the gold and oil-based ETFs and the BGI initiative, the proposed silver fund in London will not be physically backed by the underlying commodity."

The Silver Users Association has argued against the proposed US silver ETF on grounds that the silver market is too small to support large amounts of metal being allocated to investors. The London based ETF may have had less difficulty with its approval simply because it is not attempting to take physical silver out of the market, thereby avoiding conflict with industrial users.

ETF Securities had earlier launched the world's first exchange traded commodity (ETC) backed by gold when it listed Gold Bullion Securities on the Australian Stock Exchange.

For more on ETF Securities and its Chairman Grant Tuckwell, see this article from Resource Investor.