Silver price logs highest finish since 2014, up more than 80% from 2020’s low
London (July 22) Silver rallied Tuesday to finish at its highest level since 2014, up by more than 80% from the year’s low, benefiting as both a precious and industrial metal as it looks to catch up with gold’s impressive year-to-date performance.
“Silver was long due for a catch-up with gold,” said Peter Grosskopf, chief executive officer at Sprott Inc. “As a much smaller market, once investor interest enters in size, its supply side gets swamped.”
As some parts of the global economy start to improve after COVID-19 shutdowns, silver’s “industrial supply and demand side have balanced,” Grosskopf told MarketWatch. “That creates a window for the wave of investment demand to push the price much higher.”
In Tuesday trading, September silver contract SIU20, 7.83% rose $1.37, or 6.8%, to settle at $21.557 an ounce on Comex. Prices based on the most-active contracts marked their highest settlement since March 2014, according to Dow Jones Market Data. They trade 83% above the year-to-date low of $11.772 seen on March 18, which was the lowest since January 2009.
Silver prices had settled early last week, and again on Monday, at the highest since September 2016.
Read:Why silver is trading at a nearly 4-year high
Gains for silver compare with a climb in gold futures to their highest price in nearly nine years. On Tuesday, August gold GCQ20, 0.77% rose $26.50, or 1.5%, to settle at $1,843.90 an ounce.
Year to date, most-active gold futures trade about 21% higher, while silver is up by roughly 20%.
Silver has seen the “best of both worlds,” with its precious metal side boosted by safe-haven demand, as economies in China and the U.S. improve, proving the metal a lift as an industrial metal, said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco.com.
Silver trades in the lower half of its historical trading range, and has “much more upside potential,” he told MarketWatch. Gold is not far from its all-time high, but silver still has long way to go before it nears its record high, making silver look “undervalued” to investors, he said.
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