Silver plunges following gold

Silver tracked golds performance and slipped on Tuesday as the dollar regained some of its strength. The dollar index, which tracks the greenbacks performance against a basket of six major counterparts, was up 0,1% and traded at 82.81. The dollar found support in negative Euro zone data. PPI for April for the single currency block mismatched forecasts and plunged by 0,6% compared to March. On an annual basis, PPI was 0,2% lower than April 2012, going below expectations of a 0,3% gain.

The dollar and dollar-based commodities tend to trade inversely. A stronger dollar makes raw materials less appealing as an alternative investment. They also become more expensive for foreign currency holders.

On the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, silver futures for July delivery traded at $22.533 a troy ounce at 9:21 GMT, down 0,83% on the day. This followed a 1% rally of silver on Monday, when The ISM Manufacturing index mismatched predictions by 1.7% and plunged below the neutral level of 50. The value for May stands at 49, significantly below the 50,7 reading for the previous month and the forecast of 50,7. This dampened further expectations for an earlier-than-intended Quantitative Easing slowdown, as silver, like gold, benefits from an environment of easy money as a safe haven for wealth preservation.

Elsewhere on the market, palladium traded at $752,40 a troy ounce at 9:29 GMT, down 0,88%. Platinum also followed other precious metals direction and sank 0,57% on the day, trading at $1 488,85 per ounce at 9:30 GMT.