It's 'Game On' For Silver; Explosion Could Come Soon

(August 20, 2019 - Daniela Cambone)

Silver could see $20 an ounce by year-end.

(Kitco News) - Silver has quite a bit of upside potential left, and once the gold-silver ratio breaks below the 200-day moving average, it could be "game on" for silver prices, this according to Phil Streible, Senior Market Strategist of RJO Futures.

"I think a $20 year-end target on silver or $1,600 on gold is completely not out of the question, especially the way things are going. We do need to resolve some of the trade agreements with U.S. and China because of the fact that a lot of the products that they import are silver-related," Streible told Kitco News.

On technical factors, although gold's risks are skewed to the upside, Streible said that key price levels need to be broken before momentum can be maintained.

"The upside on gold, it's up at the $1,542, $1,550, that's your breakout to the upside. If we take out whatever the low was that day, $1,492, that's your downside, so those are your two risk parameters there," he said. "Obviously I think we're going to continue to head higher, if we break below that, I'd be quite cautious at that level."

Streible noted that gold's consolidating pattern can be attributed to investors trying to store their money in light of rising geopolitical tensions in Hong Kong.

On signs the economy is headed into a recession, Streible said that the last time we saw a major bear market in 2008, gold's performance was lackluster in the beginning.

"Something you've got to be really savvy about is you need to look at the last time that this occurred, gold futures actually didn't do all that well. They spiked up into Lehman Bros. going under and then we went into this deflationary environment where people liquidate their currencies and their equities in other countries and pile into the dollar for safety, and it erodes the gold prices," he said.