Why would silver miners be against adding an entire new customer base by public access to a silver ETF? I understand the liquidity issue, but many of the arguments that I have heard are comparing the gold ETFs to the silver market. I don't think that the public would be thinking of silver like gold so the percentage of public purchase through this new silver vehicle would be less.

My initial thought is that the only miners that would be against this new ETF would be the ones that have too much of their book hedged and have been trying to get out of these short positions for the last few years (which has been painful). Or miners that have raised money through the debt markets, maybe some OTC derivative transaction, where if the price of silver rises, they would be in trouble.

Am I missing something?

Bill,
I just wanted to let you know that this is not a breaking story. The SUA position came out almost a month ago:
http://www.investmentrarities.com/10-11-05.html
It appears that MarketWatch is a bit behind. The silver market does look interesting this morning, but I doubt the SUA has anything to do with it.

g034 - the SUA is a group that represents silver users (e.g. film manufacturers and jewelers). As far as I can tell it does not represent the miners at all.

Sure, the SUA wouldn't want prices higher because they purchase the metal, but the article states that some miners don't want the ETF either. The miners interest are what I am questioning. If I am correct regarding hedge books, then it's possible for the price of silver to rocket higher while the share price of a specific mining company to underperform, stay flat or even collapse - there lies my interest. By the way, I have traded HL, CDE, PAAS, SSRI in the past and these stocks can fly if the tradewinds are in the right direction so keep your eyes peeled if you are a trader.