(MENAFN- The Rio Times) Silver is entering December trading just below 57 dollars an ounce after briefly touching fresh record highs near 58 dollars in thin Asian dealing overnight.

A week ago, prices were close to 50 dollars. The result is a roughly 14 percent surge in seven days and a near-doubling so far this year, the kind of move more often seen in speculative manias than in supposedly dull industrial metals.

The spike has been global. Spot and futures in New York and London are printing in the mid-50s, Shanghai prices have marched higher as local warehouse stocks fall toward decade-low levels, and Indian MCX contracts hit repeated all-time highs in rupee terms on Monday.

Traders on the ground describe a market where every dip is being bought and liquidity is still patchy after last week's CME outage, making it easier for aggressive buyers to push prices higher.

Behind the fireworks sit old-fashioned fundamentals rather than a central-planning decree. Analysts now talk openly about a triple-digit million-ounce supply deficit this year, driven by shrinking Chinese inventories and relentless demand from solar, electronics and electric-vehicle producers.

At the same time, investors are piling in: the big US silver ETF has taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in fresh money and raised its holdings above 500 million ounces.



Macro conditions are doing the rest. With the dollar sliding to two-week lows and markets assigning high odds to another Federal Reserve rate cut in December, non-yielding assets suddenly look attractive again.

Market-maker commentary out of Asia and India frames the rush into silver as classic pre-cut positioning, sharpened by unease over equities and the latest wobble in cryptocurrencies.

Technical signals echo the story but also flash a warning. On daily and weekly charts, silver is riding the top of its Bollinger Bands, far above rising moving averages. Relative-strength indicators on both the daily and four-hour charts sit deep in overbought territory.

For investors who believe in market discipline and real-world supply and demand, that combination suggests a powerful bull trend that now badly needs a cooling-off period before it can claim to be sustainable.

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