Silver itself fell from a recent high near $15.00 an ounce to a recent correction low near $9.75 an ounce. I have bought shares of Coeur d’ Alene.
Silver fundamentals are increasing due to the demand from computer chips, nano sterlization and medical benifits which will put a strong push on the value for Silver. Soon a shortage of silver is coming which will make the price of silver not correlated to gold anymore. That means the % increase of silver will be far greater than that of gold.
If you have not bought any yet buy some CDE - Coeur d’ Alene Mines. I want to be adding Coeur d’ Alene Mines because it is the largest publicly traded primary silver producer in the world. The stock has traded in a 52-week range of $3.30 to $7.37. Last year, CDE produced nearly 14 million ounces of silver and 130,000 ounces of gold. Coeur d’ Alene Mines has working mines in Nevada, Chile, Argentina and Australia. It also has some important development projects in Bolivia and Alaska. (Continued)

The $135 million San Bartolome project in Bolivia is one of the reasons that shares of CDE were hit so hard in recent months. As you probably know, the Bolivian government recently hinted that it is going to make some changes regarding its rules for mining companies. Coeur d’ Alene believes that the Bolivian authorities are not interested in nationalizing CDE’s $135 million San Bartolome silver project. However, CDE does expect some kind of increase in taxes on mining companies. The management at CDE does not believe that such higher taxes would be prohibitive to their plans to develop and operate the San Bartolome silver project. The Bolivian connection in this stock helps to make it a relatively higher risk than some of the other mining stocks. Overall though, I believe the upside potential in CDE more than offsets the risks involved.

Coeur d’ Alene Mines produced about 14 million ounces of silver last year. CDE expects to produce about 15.6 million ounces of silver in 2006. The company’s San Bartolome project in Bolivia is scheduled to start production in late 2007. That new mine is expected to produce about 8 million ounces of silver annually. I expect the bull cycle in the metals to remain in place for at least the next three years. Given that Coeur d’ Alene Mines plans to expand its silver out put, and the lack of any forward sales positions against its gold and silver reserves, the bull cycle in the metals should help to push this stock significantly higher.