Silver price advances as markets eye US jobs report

The price of silver has advanced in today’s session so far after trading sideways during the previous day. A sluggish global economic outlook continues to support the precious meatal, with market participants especially awaiting the release of the monthly US jobs report later this week.

Silver for immediate delivery had gained 14 cents, or 0.82 percent, to $17.31 as of 06:53 GMT, to be trading some 3.9 percent above its 50-day simple moving average of $16.66. Yesterday, the precious metal remained virtually unchanged, closing down less than a cent after rallying to its biggest monthly gain since June last month.
According to a report form Commerzbank cited by The Bullion Desk, uncertainty over the impact of Greece’s Syriza party on the Eurozone is likely to support precious metals at least for the near future. Traders will be keeping tabs on Greece’s next move after the avowedly anti-austerity Syriza came to power last week.

The price of silver for March delivery had added four cents, or 0.23 percent, to be at $17.28 as of 06:26 GMT. Yuichi Ikemizu, branch manager at Standard Bank in Tokyo, was quoted by Reuters as saying that the precious metal market remains “pretty much split between bullish and bearish”. Ikemizu also cautioned that there may be a sharp selloff of long positions should the US nonfarm payrolls data this week turn out strong.

The big event for the week comes on Friday, with the release of the monthly employment situation report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. IG reports that the unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 5.7 percent while the number of jobs created is forecast to have declined to 230,000 from 252,000 a month earlier. In 2014 the US economy added 2.7 million workers, the most since 1999.
Based on the two most actively traded COMEX contracts, with a total volume of trade in gold and silver of 16,685 contracts as of 06:26 GMT today, the gold:silver ratio was at 73.99. Yesterday, the ratio closed at 74.04.

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