por admin » Mié Sep 26, 2012 3:40 pm
La plata seguiria subiendo hasta finales del 2013 a pesar de la debil demanda industrial. Advierten es un metal volatil.
Silver’s Climb Looks Set to Continue, Analysts Say
Central-bank stimulus moves have helped drive silver prices up sharply in the past two months, and analysts say the metal looks poised to continue its climb until the end 2013, despite weakening industrial demand.
By Laura Clarke
Central-bank stimulus moves have helped drive silver prices up sharply in the past two months, and analysts say the metal looks poised to continue its climb until the end 2013, despite weakening industrial demand.
Still, analysts caution that silver’s movements tend to be volatile.
Silver futures are up 21% since the beginning of August, settling Wednesday at $33.88 an ounce, largely driven by demand from investors who anticipated and then cheered the U.S. Federal Reserve’s announcement of a third round of quantitative easing to stimulate the economy.
QE3 is bullish for gold and silver. Both metals are often considered hedges against U.S. dollar weakness and inflation; the liquidity increases from the Fed’s stimulus measures tend to weaken the dollar and raise the potential for inflation.
Silver often moves in tandem with gold, but in a more erratic fashion due to its thinner trading volumes and because it has many more industrial and physical uses than gold, creating tension between investment demand and industrial demand.
While monetary stimulus has helped attract more speculative investors to silver, concerns persist that slowing industrial demand for the metal, particularly from nations such as China, the world’s second-largest industrial silver consumer after the U.S., could pose downside risks to its price.
However, “the fundamentals of what end users are doing right now doesn’t matter much for the price compared to investment demand,” says Credit Suisse metals strategist Tom Kendall.
BNP Paribas metals strategist Anne-Laure Tremblay said, “Silver’s price is more driven by investment demand, interest rates and central-bank easing than by physical demand and the state of the general economy.” And this investment demand certainly shows no signs of losing momentum.
This year to date, holdings in silver exchange-traded funds—an increasingly popular investment vehicle for precious metals—have been strong.
In the week to Sept. 25, global silver holdings in exchange-traded funds rose by 6.23 million ounces, or 1.2%, from the previous week, bringing the global tally to 514.38 million ounces, according to figures published by UBS Wednesday.
Furthermore, Ms. Tremblay adds, “although QE has been priced in to an extent, the ongoing injections of liquidity will continually prop up asset prices, including silver.”
On the industrial supply-and-demand side, meanwhile, some analysts think the picture looks less than healthy for silver.
“Industrial demand has slowed on year, from silver powder imports into China to semiconductor shipments,” said Barclays analyst Suki Cooper.
China accounts for about 17% of the world’s industrial silver demand, according to Standard Bank analyst Marc Ground.
“In general we expect weak industrial activity to continue in China into next year,” he added. “Hence our outlook for silver industrial demand remains weak into 2013.”
These weak industrial-demand dynamics might raise doubts about the extent to which investment interest can support silver’s rise, but analysts say such concerns are overdone.
They expect speculative investor demand for the gray metal to more than eclipse any drop in its industrial consumption, for the next year at least.
“Once the current positive environment for investment demand fades off, because fundamentals are so poor, the potential for a very steep correction in the silver price is much higher than for any other precious metal,” Ms. Tremblay said.
“But as long as the outlook for gold stays positive, the outlook for silver stays positive,” she said. “When gold peaks, silver will likely correct more sharply, although this is still some time away…most likely not until the end of 2013 or beyond, or until unemployment falls far enough and the economy picks up enough for governments to feel they can withdraw stimulus and raise interest rates once more.”
BNP Paribas forecasts an average silver price of $32.75 an ounce for 2012 and $41.45 for 2013.