Silver is having another crazy day
The price of silver has exploded once again on Thursday, seeing huge gains in early trading.
Just after 8:45 a.m. BST (3:45 a.m ET) the metal most famous for being given to runners-up, is the biggest gainer of all non-agricultural commodities on the day. It is up more than 1.8% to hold at around 11-month highs, and trade at roughly $17.46 per ounce. Earlier in the morning, gains were almost 3%, but have since pared.
Here's how silver looks over the last few hours:
Silver's continuing rally is all to do with a correction in the trading ratio between gold and silver. Generally speaking, silver prices track gold carefully, meaning that when gold rises, so does silver. However, this year, silver prices have lagged a little behind, and markets are now starting to correct that gap.
At the start of April, gold had gained more than 13% on the year, while silver was up just 8%. However in the past couple of weeks, silver has started to gain momentum, as investors look to close the appreciation gap between the metals.
As HSBC's James Steel noted in the bank's daily precious metals update: "we still believe they will outperform gold and enjoy positive fundamentals. Silver is benefitting from a recovery in solar power demand."
Silver's strong performance on Thursday follows on from a huge day on Tuesday, when the metal gained almost 5%.
Generally speaking, metals are enjoying strength right now, with gold, platinum and palladium all gaining on the day. Gains are smaller than silver however, with prices up 0.26%, 0.01%, and 0.05% respectively.