US silver futures scaled a fresh 22-year peak on Friday amid expectations for rising demand and prices, and platinum and palladium also rose on speculative buying, but gold prices eased in listless trade.
May delivery silver on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange was up 2.3 cents, or 0.22 percent, at $10.3650 an ounce, after dealing from $10.30 to a contract high of $10.46 the priciest for futures since October 1983.
Silver has risen 16 percent this year on hopes that the US Securities and Exchange Commission might soon approve a silver exchange-traded fund proposed last year by Barclay Global Investors.
Traders are accumulating positions on thoughts that the ETF, which would be backed by physical silver, will gobble up much of the available metal supply and help boost demand and prices in the market.
"We continue to expect silver to gap higher, should the SEC announce its approval for the silver ETF, and forecast silver at $10.50 in one month and $11/oz in three months," analysts at investment bank UBS said.
EFTA's are designed to mimic the price of an underlying market or commodity, like a stock index or gold, and trade like listed stocks on any exchange. To date, the SEC has not issued any word on the ETF since a public comment period on it ended last month.
Players also are tracking the gold/silver ratio the number of ounces of silver needed to buy one of gold. The ratio has been falling, which traders tend to view as a bullish signal for silver. With Friday's close, the ratio was at 54:1, compared with 58:1 at the end of February and 60:1 in late 2005. Spot silver ended at $10.34/10.37 an ounce, up from $10.31/10.34 at the last close. London bullion dealers at $10.3650 fixed on Friday's spot reference rate. Gold, meanwhile, ended slightly lower after rising for the four prior sessions.
April delivery gold lost 30 cents to settle at $555.10 an ounce, trading between $558.60 and $552.50.
It earlier got a lift from strong silver and copper prices and US dollar weakness, but it finished capped by selling and technical resistance.
"The market just crapped out at $550 in spot gold, where the selling pressure became intense," said a desk trader. "Gold had a good run for the past few months. But the easy life of being long and letting it ride is over with," another New York trader said.
"When and if the stock market shows vulnerability to a major correction, then maybe gold will kick back in. UBS analysts said that only when they see gold establish a firm base due to good physical demand would they issue loud calls to buy gold.
"But we do expect the metal to trade higher and forecast the metal at $580/oz in one month and $600/oz in three months," UBS said. Comex gold futures hit a 25-year high at $579.50 on February 2, the same day bullion scaled a similar peak of $574.60.
The dollar fell to seven-week lows against the euro as investors lowered expectations for dollar boosting Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Spot gold edged to $554.10/555.00, off from Thursday's late New York level of $555.20/6.10.
On Friday's afternoon fix reached $555.50. Over at Nymex, April platinum climbed $3.40 to end at $1,034 an ounce. Spot platinum edged up to $1,032/1,036. June palladium rose $4.40 to $319.75 an ounce, while spot palladium firmed to $315/320.
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