SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Silver prices rose Monday to a five-month high, and small silver miners listed in Australia rose after calls on social media to buy the metal and mimic the frenzy that caused GameStop shares to rise 1,500 % in two weeks.
Spot silver rose 7.4 percent to $ 28.99 an ounce, the highest since mid-August. Shares in a handful of mining companies, such as Argent Minerals, Boab Metals and Investigator Resources, rose by more than 15%.
Coin-selling sites also reported unprecedented demand and reported delays in bullion delivery. Movements are the latest example of small traders buying in bulk, especially stocks and other assets against which they have been heavily bet, resulting in heavy losses for major investors. [MKTS/GLOB]
“There is now this curious situation in which the Reddit crowd has turned their attention to a larger whale in trying to catalyze something short-lived on the silver market,” said Kyle Rodda, an analyst at IG Markets brokerage in Melbourne.
“The most important factor here is that silver is very short-circuited, the paper market is much, much bigger than the basic commodity can justify,” he said.
“There are a lot of comments on these platforms to gather miners.”
Silver prices have risen 15% since Wednesday’s close, when messages began circulating on forums such as Reddit, encouraging users to buy the metal and raise prices.
Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Lincoln Feast.