The prices of precious metals have recovered, Commerzbank’s commodity strategist Carsten Fritsch notes.

Precious metals prices go up

“Silver is trading at $27.5 per troy ounce again. Platinum is priced at $940 per troy ounce and Palladium at $930 per troy ounce. While Silver and Platinum have so far only regained some of their losses, Palladium has completely made up for the decline and is even trading higher than at the start of the week and around $100 above the 7-year low recorded on Monday.

“The price decline was exaggerated. Apparently, market participants took a similar view, with the result that speculative short positions were probably covered in the days that followed. At the end of July, a few days before the price slide, speculative net short positions in Palladium were only slightly below the record level, according to the CFTC.”

“The CFTC will publish the latest data this evening after the close of trading. This includes the week up to and including Tuesday, i.e. the last price slump. It is therefore quite conceivable that the short positioning of speculative financial investors reached a new record level at the beginning of the week, from where the short covering started.”