Gold eases off near two-year high, silver crosses $21 for the 1st time since July 2014

Bengaluru: Gold eased off a near two-year high, while silver breached the $21 level for the first time since July 2014 in highly volatile trade on Monday, prompted by a burst of short-covering in China.

Spot gold rose about 1 percent at one point to touch a session best of $1,357.60 per ounce. This was close to the $1,358.20 level reached on June 24, the highest since March 2014, when global markets went into a tailspin in the wake of Britain`s vote to exit the European Union.

Spot gold was up 0.6 percent at $1,350.36 an ounce as of 0712 GMT. U.S. gold was up 1.1 percent at $1,353.40. Silver soared 7 percent at one point to $21.107, the highest since July 2014, before retreating to $20.41.

"There is a little bit of a two-way battle going on in silver with a number of players going short in China," said Jeremy East, global head of metals trading at Standard Chartered.

The Shanghai Exchange Futures went limit-up as onshore players have aggressively been covering their short positions in the last few days, especially on Monday, he said.

"Once the onshore market went limit-up, the short-covering buying spilled over to the London market."

Chinese commodities from nickel to cotton surged on Monday on hopes Beijing would unleash more stimulus to prop up a sluggish economy, brightening the outlook for raw material demand.

MKS trader Sam Laughlin said global uncertainty would likely continue to fuel the recent rally in precious metals, but warned that there could be sharp periods of volatility.

"The metal (silver) continues to be buoyed by its unique position as both an industrial metal in risk-on conditions and a safe-haven asset in times of uncertainty," Laughlin added.

Spot gold is expected to break a resistance at $1,351 per ounce and rise more to the next resistance at $1,367, said Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.

Holdings in SPDR Gold Trust, the world`s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, rose 0.41 percent to 953.91 tonnes on Friday, the highest since July 2013.

"I think the rhetoric from now to the next three months will be very important," said OCBC Bank analyst Barnabas Gan.

"By rhetoric I mean what we hear from the UK and Europe on how they are going to go about the divorce between the UK and European Union," the analyst said, adding that the suspense should increase demand for safe-haven bids.

The U.S. markets are closed on Monday for the Independence Day holiday.

Among other precious metals, spot platinum touched its best since May 12, while spot palladium hit a two-month high.