The price of silver pulled back from a six-month high Monday,
owing to profit-taking, the U.S. dollar strengthening, a major
cartel dump and overheated stockpiles.
Spot silver prices fell 1.51% to $34.10 an ounce. It's rallied
18% in the past month and 24.28% year to date. By contrast,
commodities lost 1.25% the past month, while adding 9.47% year to
date. The S&P 500 rose 3.45% the past month and 17.97% year
to date.
Fund managers and traders are booking profits as the third
quarter ends this week, says David Morrison, a market strategist
at GFT.
"Silver appears to be struggling to break and hold $35 an
ounce, a level which acted as resistance in October and November
last year," wrote Morrison.
Walter de Wet, an analyst at Standard Bank, sees low
industrial demand for the white metal.
"The latest China customs data has shown that silver imports
grew in August to 304 tons, compared to the 272 tons imported in
July," de Wet wrote in a client note. "While this might be a
signal that the upward trend in silver inventories in China is
ending, we still believe that domestic stockpiles are extremely
large when compared to the lackluster fabrication demand."
A major, undisclosed "cartel" dumped its silver this morning,
halting the rally, said Terry Sacka, chief strategist at
Cornerstone Asset Metals in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Cartels are
bullion banks such as HSBC in China, Barclays in England and J.P.
Morgan in the U.S.
"They are currency and market manipulators," Sacka said. "They
control or try to control the physical market to aid and abet the
fiat markets and governments they help out. They try to control
the impression of inflation or debt and credit globally."
In the last 24 hours, they sold 62.5 million ounces or 2-1/2
times the annual U.S. mine production in the futures market, he
said.
IShares Silver Trust (
SLV
) fell 1.4% to $33.01.
Global X
Silver Miners ETF (
SIL
) gapped down 3.09% to 24.46.
PowerShares Global Gold &
Precious Metals (
PSAU
) skidded 2.74% to 41.12.
PowerShares DB U.S.
Dollar Index Bullish (
UUP
) jumped 0.18% to 21.79.
Follow Trang Ho on Twitter
@TrangHoETFs
.