Silver plummets more than 15%, erasing gains from two-day recovery

The surge of precious metals came to a sudden halt at the end of last week, with silver seeing its biggest ever daily drop on Friday and gold plunging the most since 2013

By Yihui Xie

 

Silver fell sharply, following two days of recovery, as the white metal struggles to find a price floor following a historic market rout. Gold also declined.  

Spot silver fell as much as 15 per cent on Thursday, having briefly recovered above $90 an ounce in early Asian trading. Meanwhile, spot gold dropped as much as 3.2 per cent in choppy trading. 

 

Precious metals soared last month in a rally underpinned by speculative momentum, geopolitical upheaval and concerns about the US central bank’s independence. The surge came to a sudden halt at the end of last week, with silver seeing its biggest ever daily drop on Friday and gold plunging the most since 2013.

 

 

Markets are weighing the policy implications of Kevin Warsh’s nomination as Federal Reserve chair, with President Donald Trump saying Wednesday he would not have nominated him for the role had he expressed a desire to hike interest rates. Trump said in an NBC News interview there was “not much” doubt the Fed would lower rates again — a tailwind for precious metals, which don’t pay interest.

 

“Price action is likely to remain volatile until there is greater certainty on the monetary policy outlook,” Standard Chartered Plc analysts including Sudakshina Unnikrishnan said in a note. Some of this near-term volatility is resulting from investors redeeming their holdings in exchange-traded products, they said, but “structural drivers remain intact and we continue to expect a rebuild to the upside.”

 

Spot gold was 2.5 per cent lower at $4,839.45 an ounce as of 10:58 a.m. in Singapore. Silver was down almost 14 per cent at $75.8875.