Silver prices nudged slightly higher on Thursday, showing a degree of stability after Monday’s sharp losses.
Silver was trading at around $27.40 an ounce by Thursday afternoon, compared with around $27.22 an ounce in late deals on Wednesday.
The more stable conditions followed a sharp drop on Monday when prices fell from as high as $28.60 an ounce. The range bound conditions on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday reflected similar trading in the gold market, where a degree of calm emerged after a significant price drop on Monday.
A mixed set of US data emerged Thursday, with GDP for Q1 coming in below expectations, although weekly jobless claims painted a better-than-expected picture of the US economy. The figures left precious metals prices stable-to-slightly-higher day on day.
Elsewhere, the World Bank on Thursday released its Commodity Markets Outlook report, which forecast a rise in silver prices to an average of $25.00 an ounce in 2024, compared with an average of $23.40 an ounce in 2023.
Looking further out to 2025, the bank expects silver prices to average $26.00 an ounce, it said. The bank’s latest forecasts showed a moderate increase since its last report released in October 2023.
On the data side, Friday will see the release of US personal income and spending figures for March, while Monday will see Euro Area economic sentiment figures, followed by monthly Japanese industrial production data.
Japan’s high-tech economy makes the country a significant industrial consumer of silver, which finds applications as diverse as electronics, batteries and energy storage, solar panels, nuclear reactors, aerospace technologies, water purification systems and medical appliances.
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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