Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW): How High Can it Go?

Every time you hear about investing in silver and Silver Wheaton (NYSE:SLW), you get the usual concerns on how high and quickly the share price of the silver royalty company have risen.

While there's no doubt those who invested a year ago and longer are making a killing which current investors won't make, there seems to be a lot of upward movement left in silver, and Silver Wheaton will ride that movement as long as the macroeconomic conditions continue, and Ben Bernanke can't help himself from pouring billions of U.S. dollars into the market.

As a matter of fact, silver is about to take off in a way it hasn't for some time, and most silver miners will ride that up as well.

That means those with lower entry points will probably outperform Silver Wheaton because of their hefty share price, although one has to keep their eye on the unique business model Silver Wheaton operates, as they are much different than a pure silver mining company.

The more important question isn't how high Silver Wheaton can go, as far as share price, but how they'll perform against other peers in the sector.

Silver Wheaton also has some safety built into it because you can look at existing contracts and their terms with companies, include the price of silver and its expected movement, and get a pretty accurate idea of where it's headed.

Silver mining companies aren't as easy to investigate and come to conclusions about, and so more work is required there, and there's also more risk in them as far as variables are concerned.

Silver Wheaton will continue to perform strongly, but there are a lot better entry points to invest in silver now, although they'll carry more risk.

I think the price movement of silver will overcome the operational costs, for the most part, for the majority of silver miners, so more than likely they'll surpass the performance of Silver Wheaton if investors get in now.

That's a general assessment, and there can obviously be exceptions to this.

For Silver Wheaton, investors won't lose by investing in them in any way, as it's safer and still has a lot of good upside, but it won't perform like some of the silver miners who are now starting their long, upward run.