Retail investors have piled almost half a billion dollars into bets on silver in the past week even as the metal’s price has cascaded, almost wiping out its extraordinary gains at the start of this year.
As the price plunged, retail investors poured $430mn into SLV, the biggest silver exchange traded fund, in the six trading days to Thursday, according to data analysis by Vanda Research — including more than $100mn on January 30, when the silver price fell 27 per cent, its biggest single-day loss in history.
“People are being attracted by the sex appeal of the thing,” said Rhona O’Connell, an analyst at StoneX. Silver’s appeal had only been boosted by its “monumental sell-off”, she said, which some investors saw as an opportunity to buy at a cheaper price.