The silver price is 0.46% up on a day to day basis at $35.18 an ounce.
Analysts at RBS have suggested that silver prices could be set for a sharp correction lower.
Nick Moore, Head of Commodity Strategy at RBS has said:
"Commodity price bubbles are a feature of our markets and in our chart below I’ve indexed the tremendous price bubble squeezes of zinc in 2006 (up ~320%) and nickel in 2007 (up~225%) and the recent silver bubble which rose ~275% and is now down 30% from its high. Look how closely silver is tracking lower in line with previous bubble bursts. A fully supplied silver market will be a burden with the price to decline yet further and trade in the $25-30/oz range in the months ahead." (See Graph Below).
Looking at the latest silver market action we see that precious metals fell slightly across the complex despite a few weaker than expected US data releases and the dollar weakening against the euro on Thursday.
Gold and silver both lost a modest 0.2% on the day to $1491.6/oz and $34.95/oz respectively.
Palladium edged downward by 1%, while platinum came off 0.1%. Silver holdings in iShares declined by 242.7 tonnes, falling to the lowest level since last October.
Meanwhile, RBS have this afternoon updated investors with their preferred approach to trading the oil price:
"The brent crude oil price is testing an important retracement level after forming short triangle or pennant pattern and breaking to the downside.
"Triangles are typically continuation patterns, which would bias me to believe in a softer oil price in the near term should the price sustains below 112.7, the 161.8% Fibonacci retracement from the Feb’10 impulse wave.
"However, it is worth noting that the Brent crude is supported by the 100-day moving average at around 110.1; also a slow stochastic indicator has formed a bullish crossover. On the other hand, there is also a trailing resistance from the 50-day MA.
"Out of these conflicting signals, it is difficult to form a strong view, however, my bias is for the triangle pattern to be in play in the short term pointing to a correction to around 100.0, while in the medium-to-long term, the bias is quite bullish once the 50-day MA resistance at 118.0 and retracement at 120.0 are cleared.
"Bias: short-term corrective to around 100.7; long-term bullish to 118.0/120.0 onto 124.3."
