Precious metals in New York climbed cautiously early on Friday, after Thursday's stunning drop on profit-taking and liquidation, with dealer buying offering support to gold and silver at sharply lower levels.
Silver initially tumbled at the open on residual speculative and margin-related selling after Thursday's fall in the metals group, but steadier spot metal prices overnight later helped to boost the market, said trade sources.
By 10:48 am EDT, silver for May delivery at the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division was up 15.50 cents at $12.68 per ounce. The early range ran from a three-week low of $11.60 to $12.70.
Silver had rallied as high as $14.69 on Thursday - the steepest for futures since January 1983 - before it and the rest of the precious group plunged from their latest peaks.
Aggressive stop-loss selling dominated the sell-off, with silver down 19 percent and gold 4 percent, respectively, at one point Thursday, after prices had became sharply overbought.
Silver futures trading was briefly halted on Thursday, which is rare in New York, following a daily limit-down move.
Dennis Gartman, author of the Gartman Letter, said he saw no news to account for the nearly $3 an ounce decline in silver prices on Thursday. A floor dealer at COMEX said, "If this thing at all hints that we're going to see some aggressive fund selling in the market again, we're going to crap out."
Chart support for silver was at $11.50 an ounce.
Spot silver rose to $12.61/12.71 an ounce, from $12.43/12.46 late in New York on Thursday. Bullion dealers set Friday's London fix 15 percent lower at $12.1850.
In gold, COMEX June futures rose $3.20 to $626.30 an ounce, moving between $613.20 and $632.50. It had slumped as low as $610.50 an ounce previously.
Spot gold gained to $625.20/626.00 an ounce, compared with $619.20/620.00 previously. London's late fix Friday was at $623.50.
NYMEX July platinum jumped $19.70 to $1,128.50 an ounce. Spot platinum was worth $1,113/1,117. June palladium gained $7.10 to $357 an ounce. Spot palladium last fetched $350/355.
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