Silver Crashes 20% As China Opens, Gold & Bitcoin Also Plunging

On the heels of today’s momentum collapse in the US, Silver prices have puked almost 20% in a matter of hours after Asian markets opened…

…erasing the rebound gains of the last three days…

The overall decline from when Trump’s announcement of Warsh’s nomination as the next Fed Chair is now back up to 40%.

“Sentiment seems to have turned soggy across most asset classes, including regional equities and metals,” said Christopher Wong, a strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd.

“This underscores fragile sentiment” and has created “a feedback loop amid thin market liquidity,” he said.

Spot Gold prices are also down (around 4-5%), with $5000 seemingly acting as serious resistance…

There’s no obvious specific catalysts for the decline in precious metals for now but Goldman Sachs does note that data suggested that Chinese speculators may have played a minor role in the recent volatility (until now).

The timing suggests that Western flows rather than Chinese speculative activity drove late January’s volatility.

Most of the buildup and unwind in gold prices occurred while SHFE–the venue for Chinese speculative futures trading–was closed.

Additionally, China’s strong tradition of physical precious metals ownership and easy access to physical keep it as the dominant form of demand, with the speculative paper market in China — including SHFE futures market and ETF market — being relatively small. 

But, given the magnitude and timing of tonight’s collapse, it would appear the speculative Chinese investor has pulled the rug (although gold-backed ETFs are gaining traction in China, their market size remains tiny compared to Western counterparts).

Silver’s relative underperformance has smashed the Gold/Silver ratio back above 65x (6 week highs)…

Bitcoin is also accelerating its losses during the US day session, back below $72,000…

The collapse of these ‘alt’ currencies is coming as the US dollar’s recent gains accelerate…

“Price action is likely to remain volatile until there is greater certainty on the monetary policy outlook,” Standard Chartered Plc analysts including Sudakshina Unnikrishnan said in a note.

Some of this near-term volatility is resulting from investors redeeming their holdings in exchange-traded products, they said, but “structural drivers remain intact and we continue to expect a rebuild to the upside.”