Silver surged as much as 8 percent on Monday before pulling back sharply when a failure to pierce the all time high from 1980 unleashed a wave of technical selling amid record volume in US futures. After briefly dipping into negative territory midmorning as speculators sharply took profits near the $50 psychological level, silver later found its footing again.
The metal traded largely flat, steadying at just below $47 after the CME Group raised the maintenance margins of silver futures by 9.2 percent. Gold prices also recoiled from early gains of nearly 1 percent after touching a seventh successive record high with volatility spiking to its highest since November.
Spot silver was up 1.4 percent at $47.34 an ounce by 3:39 pm EDT (1939 GMT), sharply below a session high of $49.31. Spot gold was at $1,509,60 an ounce, up 0.4 percent, well off an a record high of $1,518.10 set earlier in the session, in tandem with silver's reversal.
US June gold futures settled up $5.30 at $1,509.10 an ounce, in a range from $1,502.20 to $1,1519.20.US May silver futures jumped as much as over 8 percent to a intraday high of $49.82 an ounce, just about 50 cents off its all-time peak for futures at $50.35 hit on January 18, 1980. May settled up $47.149 an ounce, up $1.09.
US silver volume surged to a record high, topping 300,000 lots, more than doubled gold's turnover, preliminary Reuters data showed. In platinum group metals, platinum was up 0.6 percent at $1,821 an ounce, while palladium eased 0.7 percent at $760.47 an ounce.