Chinese Day Traders Fuel Rally In Silver

Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy for Saxo Bank, says Chinese day traders are behind the limit move up on silver, yesterday.

Synopsis

• Silver surged to a two-year high Monday before the rally hit a wall above $21/oz
• Precious metal was up nearly 50% year-to-date at its intraday peak
• Surge occurred in Asian session as commodity trading venues in China proliferate
• Silver’s rise mirrors a similar surge in steel rebar and iron ore futures in April
• Silver unlikely to repeat the extent of the April correction for steel and iron futures

The biggest two-day surge in silver since 2011 has raised a few questions about the sustainability of the current rally and what is driving it.

Speculative positions held by hedge funds in both gold and silver have reached record levels while demand for exchange-traded products, especially those in gold, have continued to rise on an almost daily basis.

The 13% bottom-to-top rally from Friday to Monday in silver could represent a short-term top in the market, not least considering the 44% year-to-date rally seen already. During the rally in Asia Monday, several major stop levels got hit on Comex silver which could indicate that many short positions have now been flushed out.

It was not a coincidence that the Monday surge occured during Asian trading hours. When it comes to commodity trading, the Asian session was often in the past a period of tranquility with limited market action.

During the past week, volumes have spiked to levels last seen during the April frenzy. What happened Monday was that silver fairly quickly went limit up at the 6% daily cap in response to the strong Comex close on Friday. This helped trigger a spill over surge on Comex silver which went through several major stop levels before retracing after hitting a two-year high above $21.

The fact that the traded volume goes up while the open interest goes down is a clear indication that day traders have taken over for now. As long this continues, we are likely to see bigger daily price swings with the Asian session seeing most of this.

Do these observations lead to a warning that silver could be in for a collapse similar to that in iron ore and steel rebar? No is probably the shortest answer. Silver is a much more globally traded commodity than some of the other futures currently available for trading in China.

The latest surge has triggered a great deal of attention and with both XAG/USD and XAU/XAG reaching and temporarily breaching their technical extension levels, further upside now hinges on the support from a continued rally in gold.

The XAU/XAG ratio completed the extension of the March to April move yesterday when the ratio temporarily hit a low around 64.2. With the ten-year average at 60, silver is no longer as cheap as it was back in March when it hit 84.

On that basis, continued demand for precious metals should see silver continue to outperform but at a much slower pace, with the relative value increasingly coming back into line with longer-term averages.

Silver Weekly Chart

Silver Weekly Chart