Silver rose 2.73% in a day and approached $53 per troy ounce. On Wednesday, November 11, by 11:58 Moscow time, the metal was worth $52.92 versus $51.52 at Tuesday's close. During the European session, the gain reached almost 3%, to around $53.00.
The trigger was the October US inflation report. Inflation there is measured via the consumer price index: it shows how quickly goods and services are becoming more expensive. The figures came in above forecast.
This matters to a trader because of intraday moves. XAG/USD is the ticker for silver against the dollar in the terminal. Such reports move the metal by percentages in a single session.
What did the inflation report show?
Prices are rising faster than forecast for the third month. Here are the key figures from the release.
- 0.30% month-on-month - core inflation versus September, against a forecast of 0.2%
- Third month in a row the reading has held at 0.3%
- 3.75% - the three-month pace annualized, the fastest growth since April 2024
- 0.35% - the headline figure versus the expected 0.3%, with its three-month pace at 5.72%
Core inflation is the same price index, but excluding the most volatile items.
Why did silver move against logic?
The report hammered the US bond market.
Deutsche Bank: "the inflation report set the day's strongest moves." The bank's analysts called the release the reason for the bond market sell-off.
The yield on 10-year US Treasuries rose 2.4% and approached 5%. Expensive coupon-bearing bonds usually sap interest in metals, which pay no interest. Silver went up anyway.
What does this mean for a trader?
Silver reacts faster than gold. The gold/silver ratio shows how many ounces of silver one ounce of gold is worth.
- $4,050 - gold held around this level
- 76.52 - the gold/silver ratio versus 78.25 on Tuesday
- 25.55% - how much the metal is still down since the start of the year
Big moves in metals are a reason to pick a challenge suited to this kind of trading in advance.
What happens next?
- The December Fed meeting. The market is discussing a large rate hike; the date is easy to find in the economic calendar.
- Commerzbank's assessment. Economists consider core inflation too high and say it has stopped falling. They don't expect a downward reversal before 2027 and believe this will continue to weigh on silver.
- Resistance at $53.89. This is the 20-day average, the nearest level on the chart.
Did you catch this morning in silver?
Almost three percent in the metal in a single European session is a good day for anyone with XAG/USD in their terminal. But on a two-to-three-thousand-dollar deposit, such a surge turns into a couple hundred. Nothing changes ahead of the next inflation report. The whole point of prop trading is in the nominal: the company charges a fee for the selection, then issues its own trading account with strict drawdown limits and shares the profit. There's still time before the December Fed meeting - a calm moment to figure out how this scheme works.