Silver rises for third straight session as dollar bounces off 3-week high

Silver futures rose during the Asian session to rebound in the fifth session of its lowest since June 19, amid the bounce of the dollar index for the third session from its highest since June 19 according to the inverse relation between them, and on the threshold of developments and economic data release expected Thursday by the US economy, which includes the second half of the of the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's semi-annual testimony before the US Congress in Washington.

As of 05:23 GMT, silver futures (September delivery) rose by 0.33% to currently trade at $15.32 per ounce compared to the opening at $15.27. the futures opened the session on a bullish price gap after closing yesterday At $15.23 per ounce, amid the decline of the US dollar index by 0.19% to 96.87 compared to the opening at 97.06.

The markets are currently looking forward for the US economy to release its inflation data with the release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which may reflect stability at zero versus 0.1% growth in May, while the core reading of the same index may show growth accelerating to 0.2% vs. 0.1%. While the annual reading of the index may show a slowdown in growth to 1.6% from 1.8%, the annual core reading may reflect the stability of growth at 2.0%.

This comes in conjunction with the release of the unemployment claims for the week ending on the sixth of this month, which may reflect a decline of 1 thousand applications to a total of 220 thousand, in addition to the release of the continuing unemployment claims for the week ending on June 29, which may decrease by 4 thousand applications to 1,682 thousand. Leading to the second half of Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell's semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the Senate Banking Committee.

We would like to point out that Powell made his first semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, before the release of the FOMC meeting minutes, which was held on June 18-19, During which monetary policy makers at the Federal Reserve kept interest rates between 2.25% and 2.50% for the fourth consecutive meeting.

The markets are also looking forward to what Federal Reserve member Randall Quarless will say in his speech today, as he is expected to speak about financial regulation and monetary policy at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, in Washington DC, amid investors' pricing for prospects of the Federal Reserve to cut the short-term benchmark interest rates by 25 at this month meeting.