Silver declines on upbeat risk appetite

Silver futures tilted lower in American trade even as the dollar index lost ground, following a basket of data from the US, the world's largest economy, while President Trump finally announced his pick to lead the Federal Reserve next February. 

As of 08:57 GMT, silver futures due on December 15 shed 0.30% to $17.125 an ounce from the opening of $17.131, while the dollar index lost 0.11% to 94.71 from the opening of 94.81. 

Earlier US data showed the preliminary Unit Labor Costs accelerated to 0.5% in line with expectations in the third quarter from 0.2% in the second, while non-farm productivity jumped to 3.0% from 1.5%, beating expectations of 2.5%, and finally, unemployment claims unexpectedly last week. 

Other data showed the economy created 235 new private sector jobs, up from 110 thousand jobs in September, beating forecasts of 202K, as markets look forward to the official payrolls report on Friday. 

US President Donald Trump nominated Federal Open Market Committee member Jerome Powell to be the next Federal Reserve Chair after current occupant Janet Yellen ends her term next February. 

The Federal Reserve voted to hold overnight interest rates unchanged at between 1.00% and 1.25% for the third meeting in a row on Wednesday. 

Fed policymakers pointed to strong US growth and improvement in the labor sector as the harmful impact of recent hurricanes fades, while asserting the path of normalizing the balance sheet, which started in October. 

Otherwise, the Committee will gradually give up the current policy of reinvesting its holdings of debt, mortgage-backed securities, and treasury bills and selling them in public auctions to trim them down from their current high levels in the long term, and in order to keep the financial conditions accommodative.

The Committee announced previously its plan to cut its monetary holdings gradually by reinvesting them through the open market system, while expecting the treasury bill sales to reach $6 billion at the start of the process, while rising to $30 billion a month in 12 months.

As for mortgage-backed security sales, they will start at $4 billion and advance to $20 billion a month after a year of the process.