Silver Price News: Silver Falls Below $29.00 An Ounce

Silver prices fell for a third consecutive day on Friday, rounding off the week in a decidedly bearish direction.

Prices fell as low as $28.90 an ounce by Friday afternoon, nearly a three-week low. Both gold and silver prices came under downward pressure from a strengthening of the US dollar on Thursday and Friday.

Silver’s three-day price drop has focussed attention on the $29.00 an ounce level, which proved an important support area in June after prices had fallen from over $32.00 in late May.

China’s closely-watched Third Plenum meeting this week seemed to disappoint those who had been hoping for new stimulus measures that could drive industrial demand in Asia’s giant economy. The meeting ended with China resolving to further deepen reform to comprehensively advance the country’s modernisation, although it was unclear whether this would translate into specific new policy measures.

Concerns over China’s property market have contributed to gold’s appeal as a safe haven investment, but silver is more dependent on strong industrial demand, particularly as the metal finds uses in multiple high-tech manufacturing applications and the global transition to clean energy, industry and transportation.

Despite silver’s weakness last week, the long-term outlook remains supportive, not just due to several years of structural supply deficit, but also due to the energy transition theme which is set to drive consumption of the metal in advanced computer and AI systems, electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries and electrical circuits, among others.

The start of this week is looking quiet on the macroeconomic data front, and the markets will be watching out for manufacturing data later in the week from a raft of countries, starting with Australia late Tuesday, followed by Japan, India, France, Germany, the UK and US on Wednesday.