By Barani Krishnan
Investing.com - Forget gold, all the action’s in silver — that’s what I heard from everyone I called today for precious metals commentary.
Indeed, silver logged its highest finish since 2013 on a 9% price surge that took it to a peak above $30 per ounce on New York’s Comex.
Gold had a better day too. But its 0.7% gain is hardly worth writing much about, I was assured — especially after last week’s 0.3% decline, which was about as exciting to follow as watching paint dry.
The excitement over silver was, of course, all tied to the speculation that the Reddit investor army of stock buyers had turned some of its attention to silver after destroying billions of dollars of the capital of hedge funds that had shorted GameStop (NYSE:GME) shares.
Lending credence to the supposed “shift," GameStop fell almost 30% by Monday’s late trading. But so-called Redittors, especially those on the WallStreetBets group that engineered the move on GameStop last week, vehemently denied organized silver buys. Consequently, my analysis, suggesting that the group move on gold next, was ignored.
“Silver saw big jumps early on the day, driven by the frenzy of #silversqueeze and social media traders looking to bully Big Money in the markets,” Eric Scoles, precious metals strategist at Blueline Futures in Chicago, said in a commentary that somewhat acknowledged the Redditors’ denial. “It could be experienced day traders taking advantage of the excitement and banking profits after each wave loses momentum.”
At the close, silver futures for March delivery on Comex settled up $2.504 at $29.418. The session high was $30.31.
Since hitting a five-week low of $24.22 on Jan. 17, silver futures haven’t looked back, gaining 21% through Monday’s close.
Gold for April delivery settled up $13.60 at $1,863.90, after an intraday high at $1,874.80.
“Gold is again not getting the full benefit but is seeing some rise by association” with silver, said Craig Erlam of online broker OANDA. “It's not yet been enough for the yellow metal to break $1,875 and even if it does, the trend in recent weeks has been very cautious. It may take a break of $1,900 to take off again.”