Silver Pops; Gold Hit another record

Silver Pops; Gold Hits Record on Inflation Worries

NEW YORK (TheStreet ) -- Gold prices were hitting highs while silver prices were moving higher Thursday as investors bought the metals against a weak dollar and higher inflation expectations.

Gold for June delivery was jumping $10.20 to $1,527.30 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold price soared to a record intra-day level of $1,535.10 an ounce while the spot gold price was less aggressive rising $1.10, according to Kitco's gold index.

Silver prices were soaring $2.30 to $48.26 an ounce, just slightly shy of their intra-day high of $49.82. The U.S. dollar index was sinking 0.12% to $73.23.

Thursday's rally was carry over from Wednesday, when gold and silver popped 1% and 2%, respectively and rose even higher in after-hours trading. Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, can be thanked for the rally. The unanimous decision by the Fed to keep interest rates at 0-0.25% until at least the fall as well as keeping its balance sheet the same size after quantitative easing ends in June meant more cheap money for longer.

The Fed will reinvest its profits from its current $600 billion bond buying program back into the market not adding extra cash but not taking any away either. Inflation forecasts were also below the Fed's 2% target, which means the central bank would want more inflation. Some experts are calling this QE 2.5 and say that this leaves the door open to a third round of quantitative easing, or QE3.

This is "adding quite a bit of pressure to the dollar index and investors are going to be searching for those hard assets to protect themselves," says Phil Streible, senior market strategist at Lind-Waldock. "[I am looking] at the long side of both [gold and silver]." Streible would be buying if gold sunk to $1,505-$1,510 level and if silver breaks south of $46.

Streible says the rally was even stronger because speculators who were washed out in the recent selloff could get back into the market as well as those who missed the rally the first time. His forecast for 2011 is $1,650 for gold and $60 for silver.

It's not just the U.S. The bank of Japan left interest rates unchanged at its latest central bank policy meeting and lowered growth forecasts estimating a recession. On the flip side, the IMF has said that Asia needs to tighten more and faster to fight rising inflation. This balancing act escalates the likelihood of negative real interest rates, at least for the medium-term.

"The prospect of low interest rates and higher inflation expectations in the U.S., coupled with ongoing issues such as increasing Eurozone debt concern and [Middle East-North Africa] unrest continue to create a bullish environment for bullion as investors look to hedge against negative real-interest rates and rising inflation," says James Moore, research analyst at FastMarkets.com.

Monday on the Comex, trading of silver futures popped to a record 319,204 contracts. Adding to potential volatility is the end of April, where traders must either roll over their existing contracts or let them expire. This could also account for the price discrepancy between the futures market and spot (physical) market.The recent rally doesn't make gold and silver any less crowded, however, meaning that there are a lot more people in the market who could sell or take profits, especially in silver.

In the latest commitment of traders report for the week ending April 19th, gold speculative longs rose 5%, while short contracts were down 0.5%. Silver, however, was a different story, with long positions up 4.3% and shorts up 7%, pointing to fiercer rallies in silver but also more volatility.