Silver has gathered at the attention of users on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum during recent trading sessions. A worker fills a mold with molten silver at a factory in Russia in 2017.
Photo:
Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg News
Silver prices soared at the start of Sunday’s trading week, sparked by a wave of new enthusiasm from online traders.
The most actively traded silver futures were up a whopping 8% from Friday’s close, before making a slight profit to trade 7% recently at $ 28.80 a troy ounce. Sunday night’s rally comes after silver prices rose more than 5% last week.
Silver has surged in recent trading sessions after users reported on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum conducting a “short squeeze” similar to those credited with fueling recent gains in other stocks popular on the Internet. The over-attention from day traders has resulted in significant gains in stocks such as GameStop Corp.
GME 67.87%
, fascinating Wall Street as individual investors enter hedge funds betting on falls.
The attention of day traders is the latest driver for silver prices, trading in a series since recording a record performance in 2020 and closing the year up 47%. Silver benefited from an explosive rise in precious metals that drove prices for everything from gold to palladium to record highs. Investors tend to buy precious metals such as silver if they are nervous about holding riskier assets, such as stocks or corporate bonds.
Even the physical metal, used in everything from electronics to jewelry, is starting to see a remarkable increase in demand as a result of Redditors’ attention. Retail silver marketplaces, including Money Metals and APMEX Inc., reported on their websites on Sunday that they could not process new orders until global markets opened due to unprecedented demand for the metal.
Write to Sebastian Pellejero at [email protected]
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