Market Nuggets
Commerzbank: 'silver is currently in greater demand than gold'
(Kitco News) - Demand for silver has been stronger than gold lately, said Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann. “Silver has recently made good some more ground vis-à-vis gold, as can be seen from the fact that the gold/silver ratio has dipped below 100,” the analyst said. The ratio measures how many ounces of silver it takes to buy an ounce of gold, with a smaller number meaning outperformance by silver. As of 8:10 a.m. EDT Friday, spot gold was up $11.20 to $1,730.20 an ounce and silver was up 36 cents to $17.70, meaning a ratio of 98. It had been as high as 127 in March.“It is also evident from the ETF [exchange-traded-fund] inflows that silver is currently in greater demand than gold,” Briesemann said. “The silver ETFs tracked by Bloomberg have registered inflows of 2,479 [metric] tons since the beginning of April, i.e. since the start of the quarter. This has seen holdings rise by 12.3%, allowing silver to overtake gold in this respect. The increase in gold ETFs during the same period has been 10.4%. Inflows into silver ETFs since the start of the year now total 3,786 tons (+20%), which equates to almost two months of global silver mining production.”
