Silver futures rise 1% past $17 on haven demand

Silver futures rose nearly one percent in American trade as the dollar index bounced off October 20 lows, following a basket of data from the US, the world's largest economy. 

As of 06:39 GMT, silver futures due on December 15 rose 0.70% to $17.090 an ounce from the opening of $16.971, while the dollar index added 0.05% to 93.86 from the opening of 93.81. 

Earlier US data showed unemployment claims rose to 249 thousand in the week ending November 11 from 239 thousand in the previous reading, while analysts expected a drop to 235 thousand, as import prices slowed down to 0.2% from 0.8% in September. 

The Philly Manufacturing Index slowed down sharply to 18.9 in November from 27.9 in October, missing analysts' expectations of a smaller drop to 24.5. 

US industrial production rose 0.9% in October, accelerating from 0.4% in September, revised upwards from 0.3%, while analysts expected a 0.5% increase, and finally, the Capacity Utilization Rate rose to 77.0 in October from 76.4%, beating expectations of a dip to 76.3%.

Otherwise, investors now await the House of Representatives' vote on the tax reform bill, amid expectations the bill will be passed after some amendments by the Senate to conform with the Congress' budget rules. 

Some of the changes suggested in the tax reform bill including individual tax cuts and simplification to five brackets, and raiding the children tax from $1,000 to $2,000 to households with $500 thousand and above incomes. 

They also included cutting the corporate tax from 35% to 20%, and scrapping several items in the Obamacare health system in order to free up $300 billion according to the view of Republicans in the Senate, while uncovering 13 million Americans from the government-subsidized healthcare.