Silver prices edged lower to Rs 66,932 per kg on April 9 as participants increased their short positions as seen by the open interest. The precious metal had jumped 1.3 percent yesterday on the COMEX.

The white metal extended decline in the afternoon session after a gap-down start tracking losses in gold and a stronger dollar.

The white metal has been trading higher than 5, 20, 100 and 200 days’ moving averages but lower than the 50-day moving average on the daily chart. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is at 53.89 which indicates positive momentum in prices.

Silver holdings in iShares ETF were unchanged for the third day at 17,880.11 tonnes. The fund NAV is trading at a premium of 0.47 percent.

The US dollar index traded slightly firm at 92.27, up 0.23 percent in the afternoon trade against the major cross.

The spot gold/silver ratio currently stands at 69.22 to 1 indicating that gold has outperformed silver.

MCX Bulldesk decreased 70 points or 0.48 percent, at 14,573 at 15:23. The index tracks the real-time performance of MCX Gold and MCX Silver futures.

Sriram Iyer, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities said, “In other precious metals, international silver prices were also trading with small losses this afternoon in Asia. Technically, LBMA Silver Spot is trading above $25.00 which could push prices further up to $25.75-$26.20 levels.”

Technically, MCX Silver May is above 67,000 which could push prices further up to 67,900-69,000 levels. Iyer advised his clients to buy May Silver futures near Rs 66,500 with a stop loss of Rs 65,700 and a target of Rs 69,000.

In the futures market, silver for May delivery touched an intraday high of Rs 67,456 and a low of Rs 66,764 per kg on the MCX. So far in the current series, the precious metal has touched a low of Rs 59,826 and a high of Rs 75,501.

Silver delivery for the May contract fell Rs 569, or 0.84 percent to Rs 66,932 per kg at 15:34 hours with a business turnover of 9,859 lots. The same for the July contract slipped Rs 603, or 0.88 percent, to Rs 67,915 per kg with a turnover of 691 lots.

The value of May and July’s contracts traded so far is Rs 1,024.08 crore and Rs 49.02 crore, respectively.

Similarly, the Silver Mini contract for April declined Rs 590, or 0.87 percent at Rs 66,943 on a business turnover of 12,397 lots.

The trend in US dollar and bond yields may continue to be a key price-determining factor for gold and silver and the focus will be on the US and European economic data, central bank comments and development relating to a virus outbreak, vaccine progress and US infrastructure bill, said Kotak Securities.

At 1010 (GMT), the precious metal dropped 1.73 percent quoting at $25.14 an ounce in New York.