Record Silver Price Sees Trading Spike in Comex, Shanghai Futures

GOLD and SILVER prices rebounded on Monday, recovering Friday's new all-time highs in London trade after a surge in New York's Comex silver trading volumes was followed by a jump in Shanghai Futures Exchange turnover of silver contracts, writes Atsuko Whitehouse at BullionVault.

Gold bullion prices in London today erased the last of Friday's 1.2% drop after trading at a new record gold high at London's 3pm bullion auction at $4346 per Troy ounce.

That had put the 'safe haven' metal 2.5% higher from the previous Friday with its 5th weekly gain in a row.

The price of silver, which now finds nearly 60% of its annual demand from industrial uses, also recovered most of Friday's sudden drop, peaking above $64 per ounce in London today after reaching $64.65 at last week's peak.

Friday's trading volume in US Comex silver futures and options rose to a daily level beaten only twice since 2020's dramatic rebound from the first-wave Covid Crash was followed by February 2021's #silversqueeze social media ramp, setting the heaviest turnover since this October's "serious" London physical silver supply squeeze.

Trading volumes in silver futures at the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) then jumped today to the highest level since May 2024, while silver bullion prices on the Shanghai Gold Exchange dropped 1.1% in Yuan terms from Friday's new all-time record SGE benchmarking of ¥14,910 per gram.

"Silver is being underpinned by continued demand for hard assets and a tight, price-supportive supply outlook," said derivatives platform Saxo Bank's Strategy Team in their latest note.

Giant silver-backed ETF SLV grew 0.1% in size last week to the largest level since July 2022, expanding 3.1% for the month, the fastest pace since the whole month of June.

The more industrial precious metal recorded an 11.0% increase last week in London, the strongest such gain since the height of the first-wave Covid crisis in August 2020.

"The biggest driver of Friday's rise in gold was arguably the sharp rally in silver," says Bruce Ikemizu, chief director of the Japan Bullion Market Association, noting how Comex silver trading volumes surged at last week's new price high.

Gold-backed ETF trust funds also expanded last week, recovering to levels seen at the precious metal's mid-October record prices, as the giant SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca: GLD) and the iShares Gold ETF (NYSEArca: IAU) saw net investor inflows of 0.3% and 1.1% respectively.

Gold on the SGE today continued trading just below China's all-time benchmark peak of 17th October, rising 1.3% to ¥978 per gram.

Asian stock markets fell, tracking Wall Street's losses on Friday, led by over-valued AI equities.

But European equity bourses rose, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 up 0.8% on Monday as US stock futures also rallied.

Gold priced in Euros rallied towards Friday's new London auction high of €3702, while the UK gold price in Pounds per ounce also pared most of last session's late losses, trading toward that fresh peak of £3251.

In the final full week before Christmas, and following last week's widely excepted US Fed cut to Dollar interest rates, markets will turn their focus to the Bank of England and European Central Bank meetings on Thursday − expected to bring a 0.25% cut for the UK while the 20-nation Eurozone stays on hold − followed on Friday by the Bank of Japan, where trading consensus backs a 0.25% rate increase.

Tuesday will meantime bring US employment figures for November − the first major read on the No.1 economy's labour conditions since the government shutdown − followed on Thursday by November's US consumer price index.