Silver Soars Friday

New York (Feb 14)  Silver futures for March delivery jumped 5 percent to $21.421 an ounce. The price reached $21.445, the highest for a most-active contract since Nov. 11. The metal, up for the 10th straight session, has climbed 11 percent this year after tumbling 36 percent in 2013.

The Fed’s monthly bond purchases have been reduced to $65 billion after cuts of $10 billion at each of its past two meetings. Yellen said this week that debt buying isn’t on a “pre-set course.” Gold jumped 70 percent from December 2008 to June 2011 as the central bank pumped more than $2 trillion into the financial system, raising inflation concerns.

Gold’s settlement above the 200-day moving average of $1,309.63 signals a rally to $1,600 for the first time since April, said Dave Lutz, the head of exchange-traded fund trading and strategy at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore.

Sentiment Shift

“Clearly, there is a shift in sentiment, and we are seeing more buying in gold,” said Lutz, who correctly predicted in December 2012 that prices were heading for declines using analysis based on the moving average.

(Source:  Bloomberg)