Silver choppy around $25.50 amid thin holiday trade

• Spot silver prices have been choppy in thin conditions in recent trade, dipping briefly below $22.50.
• Silver looks to have carved out a new $25.00ish-$27.50ish range in recent days.

Despite weakness in the US dollar, spot silver (XAG/USD) prices have been choppy in recent trade and have reversed early European session strength to briefly dip back below the $22.50 mark before recovering back above. No particular fundamental news or headlines were behind recent the move lower, saw XAG/USD drop from close to $25.70 to under $25.50 in a matter of minutes. At present, XAG/USD trades in the mid-$22.50s and is flat on the day.

Rather, it seems as though price action is just vulnerable to this liquidity/poor market depth as a result of the vast majority of market participants (in the US and Europe anyway) having already left for Christmas celebrations. It is Christmas Eve after all.

Silver’s new range

Spot silver looks to have carved out a brand-new range this week; the top of this new range is at Monday’s highs around $27.40. The 15 September high at $27.64 should also be noted as an area of resistance close to the recent high. Meanwhile, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday lows close to the $25.00 level mark the bottom of the range, as well as the 8 December high at $24.87 just beneath it.

An upside break of this range over the coming weeks would bring into play a move towards the annual highs just under $30.00, while a break below would likely open the door for a retest of the downtrend linking the August, September, November and December highs (which would likely come into play just under $24.00). Below that, there are the September and November lows around $22.00.