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Gold (0.18%) and silver (-0.30%) are mixed leading into the EU open this morning. There was a complete divergence in the price action yesterday between the two major precious metals with gold falling 0.02% and silver rising 4.99%. It has been noted already that a band of Reddit (wallstreetbets) traders have been targeting silver and they could be the cause of the rally.
Some posts have noted that the iShares Silver Trust is a target, this is the largest silver exchange-traded fund and this could have been the cause for the precious metal to have the biggest one-day rally since August
After inheriting gains from Wall Street the bourses in Asia have failed to close higher overnight. The Nikkei 225 (1.89%), ASX (-0.64%) and Shanghai Composite (-0.63%) all closed in the red with no major index in the Asia Pac are in the black at all. Also, China's overnight repo rate has hit its highest since 2015, this could be due to a liquidity squeeze seen in recent weeks.
Overnight, PBOC dismisses rumours that it had raised its standing loan facility rate. There were some unconfirmed claims and reports but the PBOC dismissed the rumours moments ago.
Deutsche Bank, Standard Chartered and ING are among some major banks under investigation in Taiwan for manipulating the nation's currency. Others said the be involved include Cargill, JPMorgan and ANZ. Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, ING, ANZ and Cargill. (unconfirmed)
Some analysts have been saying that the Reddit group are the cause of the current risk aversion in the financial markets. Things have stepped up as activist research firm Citron Research said they will be making a 'major announcement' on Friday 9am NY time (1400GMT). Brokers like Interactive Brokers, Robinhood and Charles Schwab have stopper offering certain products too. There seems to be no end to the havoc being caused by the meme happy cartel. There is now a senate hearing scheduled to discuss the matter.
On the coronavirus front, the Novavax vaccine was 89% effective against COVID-19 but in a separate South African study, the efficacy stood at just 60%. Elsewhere, it has been reported that Italy may block vaccines from leaving the nation as the feud over vaccines continues. There were also press claims that the EU may even sue AstraZeneca over the fact that they may not have sent them the agreed amount of stock.
Sticking with Italy, the Italia Viva leader Renzi said he is ready to help form a new government. He added that he would prefer a coalition but could consider a technocrat system.
Looking ahead to the rest of the session highlights include German employment data, German GDP, US PCE data, Canadian GDP, US pending home sales and comments from Fed's Kaplan, Daly and ECB's de Guindos
By Rajan Dhall
For Kitco News
