Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Silver: Wait For It.. Wait For It..

This isn't advice for you to act upon, but personally, I'm still a firm buy/hold.  Silver will prevail.  So pop some popcorn and get comfortable before the movie starts..


Commodity prices rise with global issues in flux  Second week of April.


Investors poured money into oil, metals and agricultural products despite the uncertainty of what may lie ahead for the United States, Europe's financial problems and uprisings in Libya and neighboring countries.



An added incentive was a weaker dollar. Commodities are priced in dollars so a weaker dollar makes them more appealing to investors using other currencies.


Gold Settles Above $1,557, Silver Off Lows After Bin Laden  CNBC.  Excerpts:


Silver [XAG=  42.16    0.52  (+1.25%)   ] was down 2 percent at $46.86 an ounce, having fallen as much as $5 to a two-week low of $42.58.


Silver's sell-off began last week when U.S. futures margin requirements were raised twice, and as the metal's failure to extend record highs above $50 an ounce triggered technical selling. Trade data also showed speculators had scaled back their bullish bets recently.


Silver tumbled as much as 11 percent, its steepest fall since late 2008, hit by increased margins for futures trading and a technical overhang after a 170 percent rally over the last 12 months to a record high last week.


"News about Osama and the 13 percent margin increase the second in a week (Read:  Moving the Goalposts..) — hit the market at the worst possible time," said Ole Hansen, senior manager at Saxo Bank. "Also,(there was) news Friday evening that professionals scaled back silver exposure by 26 percent as of last Tuesday.


"We are seeing volatility at an unprecedented level here," he said.

Kitco chart from Urban Survival.

Silver's Shine Is Fading Fast  CNBC.

Silver's shine is fading fast, and the market for the precious metal may have reached a top in a speculative, mad dash by ETF investors.

"The last move higher over the last month or so has really been driven by the strength of the retail investment demand, so the levels up here are not supported," said Suki Cooper, precious metals analyst with Barclays Capital.

"At levels above $40, we've seen some concern rising on the industrial demand side. The last leg higher has been investment-driven, rather than fundamentally supported. In that respect, the correction was due. I would say from a demand support point of view, we have levels that have been tested in other metals, but we haven't had a chance to test that in silver," said Cooper.  "I think now prices are going to test where physical support comes in." 

All of which presumes the Dollar will remain at least stable or gain in strength.  So when the Dollar inevitably seizes, precious metals will spike with the rapidity the word "spike" infers.  Again, not advice, but I'm not going anywhere..

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