If you buy shares in a silver mining company, you will have to assume additional market risks compared to ownership of silver bullion. You may wish to do so in order to potentially gain leveraged exposure to silver prices.

What you may not realize, however, is that most of the publicly traded “silver” stocks out there are primarily in the business of mining other metals – sometimes gold, often copper, zinc, lead, and other base metals.

Consider Pan American Silver (NYSE:PAAS), a $3.6 billion company that makes up the largest weighting (13.5%) in the Global X Silver Miners ETF (NYSE:SIL).

While Pan American is indeed a producer of silver, its business comes mainly from other metals. According to BMO estimates, only 33% of Pan American Silver’s revenue in 2019 will come from silver production.

Rare is the silver miner that actually der ... Read more »