Silver slides 1% below $17 as dollar climbs

Silver futures fell nearly one percent in American trade away from November 20 highs, as the dollar index climbed off September 20 lows for the fourth session out of five, following a basket of data from the US, the world's largest economy. 

As of 06:25 GMT, silver futures due on March 15 fell 0.90% to $16.990 an ounce from the opening of $17.144, while the dollar index rose 0.24% to 92.58 from the opening of 92.36. 

Earlier US data showed the Jolts Job Openings fell to 5.88 million in November from 5.93 million in October, missing expectations of 6.05M, while last Friday, data showed the economy added 250 thousand new private sector jobs in December, beating expectations of 191K, and up from 185K in November. 

US unemployment claims rose to 250 thousand in the week ending December 30 from 245K in the previous reading, missing expectations of a dip to 241K.

Otherwise, China's central bank governor said earlier today that he expects the GDP to slow down to 6.4% from 6.5% in 2018, in turn hurting prospects for minerals demand. 

Otherwise, Both South and North Korea announced an agreement to conduct military talks after the first official talks between both sides in more than two years, while both also agreed to send their Olympic teams under a unified banner next February. 

Last month, President Donald Trump singed into law the $1.5 trillion tax reform bill, which cuts the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, while also signing a stopgap government spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, in turn underpinning stocks and hurting safe havens such as silver.