Market Close: Price of silver stuns with rapid climb to US$60/oz as iron ore boosts materials

Good Afternoon and welcome to HotCopper’s Market Close for Wednesday of Week 50, I’m Jon Davidson. Another flattish red day in intraday trade but if you’re in silver, you probably didn’t notice. That’s because the price of gold has sucked it up along with it, kind of like a reverse gravity, and the price has been running very hard.

So hard, in fact, it’s hard to see this lasting, even despite gold’s defiant multi-year show of force against the laws of momentum. I don’t think the price will “crash”, necessarily, but the price of silver has climbed 20% in the last month.

Compare that to gold which has only increased 2% month on month, and appears to be having a hard time going much higher than US$4,200 an ounce. Silver’s the clear outperformer; copper, the other hot metal right now, is up 4.5% month on month. Still, while the goings are good, who cares about doomsaying.

Looking at sectors, materials in the lead given all the above; iron ore prices also jumped to US$103/tonne in Singapore overnight, making a good day for companies who’re all about rocks. IT and industrials led laggards heading into the final hour of trade; staples, real estate and discretionary all flat after Tuesday’s RBA call.

Let’s turn to companies in the green!

Andean Silver up 15% at 2.30 Sydney time, no surprises there, Unico Silver wasn’t far behind, suggesting having silver in your company name is a good thing right now.

4D Medical meanwhile jumped as high as +10% intraday jumping back to $2.20 a share as the company’s next-gen lung imaging tech was adopted by a second US university, that of Miami’s.

Finally, Beetaloo Energy jumped intraday after the company yesterday received a final approval for appraisal gas sales from one of its key hydrocarbon assets.

And as for companies in the red,

Arafura Rare Earths declined close to 6% intraday based on no news, it’s popular with day traders but it’s also worth noting we’ve had somewhat unconfirmed reports from China itself that rare earth export licences are currently being handed back out to its miners.

Cogstate meanwhile fell over -15% after issuing a business update in which the company said “timing-related revenue deferrals” will hurt profitability in the first half of the year, which went about as well as you’d expect.

Finally, Baby Bunting Group declined over -6% heading into the final hour on no news and following a 40% climb over the last twelve months, suggesting that profit takers there are deploying cash elsewhere. Maybe into silver.

That’s Market Close for Wednesday, Im Jon Davidson, have a fantastic evening, we’ll see you on Thursday.