Spot Silver extended its pullback from a 1 1/2-week low of $71.98/oz. on Thursday, as lingering geopolitical tensions between the US and Iran underpinned safe-haven assets.
There has been certain progress in the US-Iran talks this week, but distance on some issues has remained, the White House said.
At the same time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that any new US strike on Iran would lead to serious consequences.
On the monetary policy front, the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s January meeting showed that FOMC officials were divided over the future trajectory of interest rates. Several policy makers signaled that further rate cuts would likely be appropriate in case inflation continued to subside in line with their projections.
Others said that it might be prudent to keep the policy rate on hold for some time. Some FOMC members even argued that rate hikes could become necessary in case inflation remained elevated.
Investors are currently expecting the first rate cut by the Fed for this year to occur in June.
Spot Silver was last up 2.12% on the day to trade at $78.83 per troy ounce.
“We still see a period of consolidation in the near term before prices of gold and silver trend higher gradually. For silver, consolidation is likely to hold in the $70 to $90 range while gold may trade in the $4,800 to $5,100 range in the interim,” Christopher Wong, a strategist at OCBC, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
TradingPedia.com is a financial media specialized in providing daily news and education covering Forex, equities and commodities. Our academies for traders cover 
