Spot silver climbs to $60 per ounce for first time

Silver first topped its October peak in a choppy trading session as a chaotic halt on futures and options trading on Comex in late November dried out liquidity.

Silver topped $60 an ounce for the first time as traders bet on further monetary easing by the Federal Reserve and continued supply tightness. Gold also climbed.

Spot silver prices rose as much as 4.1% to $60.535 an ounce, surpassing its previous peak reached just last week.

The white metal’s rapid advance in recent days was largely driven by expectations that the US central bank will deliver a quarter-point rate reduction at the conclusion of its Dec. 9-10 meeting. While traders grew cautious on how much more easing the Fed will deliver next year, a near-certain rate cut on Wednesday is helping boost prices of silver.

Traders “were definitely looking for cuts,” said Rhona O’Connell, head of market analysis at StoneX Financial Ltd. Lower rates typically benefit precious metals including gold and silver, which carry no interest.

Silver’s advance is also helped by a tight physical market, which underwent a historic supply squeeze in October in the benchmark London market amid surging demand from India and silver-backed exchange-traded funds.

That crunch has eased in recent weeks as more metal is shipped to London vaults, with TD Securities estimating that free floating inventories in London - metal that’s not tied in silver ETFs - standing at 202 million ounces as of end of November. That “has essentially reversed the year-to-date tightening,” said Dan Ghali, senior commodity strategist. Meanwhile, other markets have seen supply constraints: Chinese inventories are at decade lows.

Silver first topped its October peak in a choppy trading session as a chaotic halt on futures and options trading on Comex in late November dried out liquidity. The holiday season and low physical trading in London’s over-the-counter market also amplified price moves.

Traders remain cautious about taking silver out of the US on tariff concerns after it was added to the US Geological Survey’s critical minerals list. That worry has kept some metal onshore.

Gold also gained as traders awaited the Federal Reserve’s near-certain rate cut and cues on its monetary easing in 2026.

Any suspicion that the Fed might pause its recent policy of cutting rates may weigh on gold, analysts from BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions Inc., said in a note. Bullion may fall “below $4,000 an ounce as a monetary-easing cycle that began in 2024 starts to lose momentum,” they said.

Gold has gained roughly 60% this year, boosted by elevated central-bank purchases and strong inflows to exchange-traded funds. While it’s pulled back from a peak of above $4,380 an ounce in late October, it has found support on expectations for further monetary easing in the US. Pacific Investment Management Co. expects gold to continue doing well, with central banks holding more gold than Treasuries.

Silver rose 3.9% to $60.44 an ounce as of 11:44 a.m. in New York. Gold was up 0.7% while platinum and palladium both gained. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was flat.