Gold and Silver Prices Rise Sharply
Gold prices rallied on Thursday, hitting 10-day high level thanks to persistent robust physical-side demand from Asia and weakness in the U.S. dollar. Silver prices also rallied on Thursday.
At last check, gold futures for June delivery leaped 2.80% to $1,463.50 an ounce while spot gold jumped 2.54% to $1,467.11 an ounce.
Ever since gold prices crashed last week, falling to a two-year low level, the demand from Asia has been particularly strong with traders in Hong Kong and Singapore running out of stock while premiums on gold bars climbing to multi-month high compared to spot gold prices in London.
Commenting over an unusually strong demand from Asia, Daniel Smith, an analyst at Standard Chartered Bank said, “There has been a massive surge in terms of physical interest in Asia — we had a record level of shipments to India last week, which was twice the level of the previous week,” according to Reuters.
“Delays at the refineries in Europe are running between two to six weeks,” added Smith.
Bullion also found support on Thursday after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that global central banks raised their bullion holdings. According to Reuters, The IMF said that Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey increased their gold reserves in March with Turkey importing another 18.5 tons in first three weeks of the current month.
The U.S. dollar traded broadly lower during the Asian and European trading hours on Thursday, boosting the demand for dollar-dominated commodities. The dollar came under pressure a day after when the Commerce Department’s durable goods orders data showed more-than-feared drop in orders in March. However, the US unit pared losses following the release of better-than-expected jobless claims data.
Meanwhile, holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust (ETF) (NYSE: GLD) fell another 0.38% on Wednesday, hitting lowest level since 2009, showed a data provided by Reuters.
Silver futures soared 6.32% to $24.28 an ounce.
In late trading, the iShares Silver Trust (ETF) (NYSE: SLV) was up 4.55%, and the ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF) (NYSE: AGQ) was up 9%.
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Post Written By: Ed Liston
Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.
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