Silver prices were range bound on Thursday, mirroring gold prices which were broadly steady on the day.
Silver prices reached a high of $28.68 an ounce, before easing back to around $28.30 an ounce later in the day. That compared with Wednesday’s trading range of $28.14 to $28.82 an ounce.
Recent days have been characterised by price stability, in contrast to the previous week when prices rallied to long-term highs, briefly topping $30.00 an ounce.
The price action largely followed gold, which showed some relative stability this week after setting fresh all-time highs on April 12.
Silver’s recent strength suggests that safe-haven flows into precious metals have trumped more bearish factors that include a perceived delay to the start of interest rate cuts by central banks until after June. This has primarily been driven by concerns that tensions between Israel and Iran could spill over into a broader confrontation – an outcome that would likely send stock markets lower, and drive investment flows into hard assets like gold and silver.
Taking a wider view of the market, industry group The Silver Institute published its World Silver Survey 2024 report on Wednesday showing that industrial demand for silver, which makes up about 50% of total demand, rose by 11% in 2023.
Silver demand for photovoltaics increased by 64%, surpassing estimates, it said. Overall, silver demand exceeded supply in 2023 for the third consecutive year, resulting in a structural market deficit of 184.3 million ounces, the institute said. However, total silver demand in 2023 saw a 7% decline to 1,195 million ounces, albeit from a record level in 2022, it said.
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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