When I went to bed on Sunday night, spot silver was up 79 cents to $40.52 an ounce, blasting through the $40 benchmark. This two percent increase in the first eight hours after the foreign markets opened was more than twice gold’s increase of about 0.9 percent to $3,478.40. Gold did, however, set a new record high. The question people are asking themselves is, when will it break $50?
When the market closed at 3 p.m. Monday, my Kitco app showed silver was $40.78, up 2.65 percent for the day. Their online chart, however, showed it at $41.16, or up $1.43 since the previous close, a jump of 3.6 percent. I don’t know why there is a discrepancy. Either way, it’s a nice gain.
What made this climb remarkable was the U.S. market was closed for the holiday, so there was no pressure from U.S. buyers. It also may mean there is little or no market manipulation, meaning the price of silver might drop on Tuesday when U.S. banks try to drive the price of silver back down.
Another notable aspect of the $41 price is that silver started the year at less than $29, meaning it is up more than 40 percent year-to-date. Makes me wish I owned several thousand ounces.
What does it Mean?
The rapid increase could mean many things:
- Markets are insecure about the financial future and investors are fleeing to hard assets
- The value of the U.S. dollar is dropping
- There is concern about U.S. government borrowing
- Investors fear a new outbreak of war
- Or it could be because of talk that the U.S. may declare silver to be a critical mineral, which might increase demand and therefore the price
Is the higher price reason to prep? Anything is a good excuse to prep.
