Silver marks longest winning streak since mid-2014

Silver futures rose in American trade to the highest since late August, even as the dollar index rose for the first time in six sessions off September 20 lows, following a basket of US data and ahead of Fed's minutes. 

As of 07:25 GMT, silver futures due on March 15 rose 0.31% to $17.260 an ounce from the opening of $17.206, while the dollar index rose 0.27% to 92.12 from the opening of 91.87. 

Earlier US data showed the ISM manufacturing PMI rose to 59.7 in December from 58.2 in November, beating expectations of 58.1, while ISM manufacturing prices rose as well to 69.0 from 65.5 in November, beating forecasts of a dip to 64.8.

Construction spending slowed down to 0.8% in November, beating forecasts of 0.6%. 

Later today, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes of the December 12-13 meeting, at which policymakers voted to increase overnight interest rates by 25 basis points to between 1.25% and 1.50%, while releasing their three-year forecasts for interest rates, inflation, growth, and unemployment. 

Silver futures are on their longest winning streak since June 2014 after rising today for the seventh straight session, and marking a yearly profit in 2017 for the second year in a row, with a 6.3% profit, in contrast to the dollar that fell 10.2% last year, recording the worst performance since 2003.