The spot silver price is 2% lower on the day at 3501. The spot gold price is half a percent lower at 1544. Silver prices could struggle until such a time as speculative investment interest picks up. A commodities note from Barclays Capital, released this morning, reflects on this problem: "However, investor interest is relatively flat in gold for the year to date but has been reduced across the PGMs and silver. The importance of investment demand has been clearly highlighted in the silver market this year, with prices rallying to 31-year highs, amid weak fundamentals, but accompanied by physical ETP holdings hitting all-time highs, record coin sales and although speculative positions were well below their peak, they were firmly in positive territory. "Indeed, speculative interest started to fall before the sharp drop in prices. ETP holdings have continued to dwindle while net fund length is hovering around two-year lows, and in turn, silver prices have struggled to gain traction. Overall," Silver was the weakest performer yesterday, losing 2.4% to settle at $35.75/oz accompanied by ETP flows remaining negative. Physical silver ETP holdings fell by 32 tonnes yesterday, taking net outflows for the month to 29 tonnes and total metal held in trust to its lowest in almost ten months. Market sentiment has remained poor in the European session, and this is expected to continue into the US session. Stock index futures pointed to a sharp fall in share prices on Tuesday after equities on Wall Street recorded their biggest fall in about a month in the previous session as concerns grew that the euro zone debt crisis could engulf other countries. Futures for the S&P 500, for the Dow Jones and for the Nasdaq 100 were down 1.1 to 1.2 percent.

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