Silver pushes above $21

NEW YORK (Aug 12)  Silver futures topped $21 and a heavyweight gold exchange-traded fund logged its first increase in holdings since June.

September silver   rose 92 cents, or 4.5%, to $21.32 an ounce. Silver hasn’t traded above $21 since mid-June, according to FactSet. The Global X Silver Miners ETF /quotes/zigman/1542828/quotes/nls/sil SIL +6.35%  was up more than 5% in recent trade.

“The jump in gold since the low last week has primarily been driven by silver following the better-than-expected imports of raw materials last week from China,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, in emailed comments.

The day’s advance came even as dollar-denominated commodities like gold faced headwinds from a move higher in the U.S. dollar  +0.23% .