The holdings at the iShares Silver Trust (NYSE:SLV) have been climbing recently, some 129 tonnes of the metal added in just the last seven days, as the price of silver has surged from under $18 an ounce to more than $19.50 with more upside likely ahead.

At 9,280 tonnes, the inventory is still a bit short of the high seen in late-2009 at 9,514 tonnes, but, with the price of silver rising as it has been, that could change very quickly.

Disclosure: Long silver coins and bars

This is Part 4 of a 5-part series on gold and silver price analysis. Please read Parts 1, 2, and 3 before proceeding to read this article as each article in the series builds upon the last.

Those who have been following precious metals manipulation in the market have been waiting a long time for the explosion in prices. Since gold is hovering around $1200 now and silver broke $19 very recently, it seems as though the breakout has occurred.

However, I would like to submit to you, in the following analysis, that the breakout we

By Brad Zigler

The past few weeks have been bullish for gold, in its bullion form and as an embed in mining stock prices. We’ve touched on the differential volatility of bullion and mining stocks before, most recently in “Appraising Gold Miners’ Equity Risk.” In that piece, we compared the performance and volatility of the Market Vector Gold Miners ETF (GDX) and its components to bullion proxied by the SPDR Gold Shares Trust (GLD).

There’s more than one way to obtain broad exposure to the gold mining

By Brad Zigler

In my refrigerator, a jar of something called “sandwich spread” has been lurking for weeks. I honestly don’t know how it got there, but I suspect one of my Canadian friends who’s been invited over for our backyard barbecues may have brought his favorite along and then forgot to export it from our premises.

I would have preferred him leaving some of his Molson behind.

You see, that’s the thing about this condiment, which is a combo of mayonnaise and pickled vegetables. You either love it or hate it. I know of no one who’s ambivalent about it.

So