Silver prices made modest gains on Monday and Tuesday, taking a lead from gold prices, which saw a similar upward trend at the start of the week.
Prices finished the day at around $23.15 an ounce on Tuesday, compared with around $22.80 an ounce late Friday.
Silver’s price moves largely followed gold, which reached a two-week high on Tuesday amid heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
On the fundamentals side, total global silver demand is forecast to rise by around 1% to 1.2 billion ounces in 2024, the Silver Institute said in a report released Tuesday.
If borne out, 2024 would see the second-highest year ever for silver demand, it said, led by stronger industrial offtake for the metal.
Near-term price pressures are seen on the downside, notably a potentially delayed start to US interest rate cuts and a slowing Chinese economy, the institute said. Looking further out to the second half of the year, the picture starts to look more bullish for silver, due to a more favourable economic backdrop and expected cuts to interest rates, it said.
In the short-term, the markets will be watching out for Wednesday’s US Fed interest rate decision, with the central bank widely expected to leave rates unchanged at 5.5%. Then on Thursday, eyes will be on the Euro Area inflation rate for January and the US ISM Manufacturing PMI for the latest pulse check on industrial demand in the US.
Frank’s experience covering the commodities markets spans 22 years, with a particular specialism in metals, carbon and energy markets. He has worked as a senior editor for S&P Global Commodity Insights (formerly Platts) and before this, at ICIS-LOR, a part of Reed Business Information (Reed Elsevier), where he covered the petrochemicals markets from 2003 to 2005.
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