Silver futures pare gains on profit booking, slips Rs 2,700 from day's high

Silver prices climbed to Rs 58,827 per kg on July 22 but came off from the day’s high as participants booked profit and trimmed their positions. The precious metal rose to a seven-year high of $23.19/oz, its highest level since September 2013.

The white metal has run up sharply in the past few days due to concurrent gains in the gold price, firmness in industrial metals and weakness in the dollar.

Silver holdings in iShares ETF jumped by 428 tonne to 16,857.08 tonne, a record high on huge investor inflows.

Ravindra Rao, VP- Head Commodity Research at Kotak Securities, said silver prices has surged above Rs 60,000/kg for the first time on the MCX since December 2012. “Silver has rallied reflecting firmness in the international market. International silver prices have surged to 2013 highs on back of concurrent gains in gold and industrial metals and strong investor buying as is evident from ETF inflows.”

In the futures market, silver for September delivery touched an intraday high of Rs 61,280 and a low of Rs 58,000 per kg on the Multi-Commodity Exchange (MCX). So far in the current series, the precious metal has touched a low of Rs 41,558 and a high of Rs 61,280.

Silver futures for September delivery gained Rs 1,238, or 2.16 percent, to Rs 58,580 per kg at 14:31 hours on a business turnover of 14,518 lots. The same for the December delivery rose Rs 1,414, or 2.41 percent, to Rs 59,968 per kg on a turnover of 670 lots.

The value of September and December contracts traded so far is Rs 7,304.97 crore and Rs 183.59 crore, respectively.

The spot gold-to-silver ratio currently stands at 85.24 to 1, which means the amount of silver required to buy one ounce of gold. The decline in the ratio indicates that silver has outperformed gold.

Kotak Securities sees some extended gains in silver with next resistance near $24/oz levels.

At 09:09 (GMT), the precious metal was up 2.04 percent at $21.99 an ounce in New York.

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