【TOP1 Evening】Silver surges to near 6-month peak; Dollar supported by haven demand
Get ready for a 10% stock drop, driven by the 3 'Rs,' warns Bank of America; White House will examine GameStop stock trading; Oil gains despite patchy vaccine rollouts, new coronavirus variants.

Gold
Silver rallied for a third straight session on Monday, soaring as much as 7.4% to a near six-month peak, after social media posts since last week called for retail investors to flood into the market.
Silver rose 9.31% to $29.271 per ounce by18:00 (GMT+8),
Silver, both a safe-haven asset and an industrial metal, has risen nearly 15% since Thursday, when posts began circulating on Reddit urging individual investors to buy silver mining stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETF) backed by physical silver bars, in a GameStop-style short-squeeze.
"This is Asia's response" to all the retail mania, Brian Lan, managing director at GoldSilver Central, said, adding that a lot of investors want to take advantage of the situation.
Demand for physical silver has more than doubled since Thursday, as investors who were on the sidelines bought the metal on worries that prices will shoot up, Lan said.
Data from iShares Silver Trust ETF on Friday showed over 37 million shares were created in one day, each one representing an ounce of silver.
Buying an ETF can boost silver prices by increasing the number of shares in the fund and making its operator buy more metal to back them.
There will be volatility in the short term, and prices could hit $33-$38, said Nicholas Frappell, global general manager at ABC Bullion.
Following silver's gains, spot gold rose 0.98% to $1859.71 per ounce by 18:00 (GMT+8).
Forex
The safe-haven dollar found support at the start of a new week, with traders remaining wary amid the battle on Wall Street between hedge funds and retail investors.
Wrangling over the size of President Joe Biden's fiscal stimulus package and delays to vaccine rollouts also weighed on sentiment, stoking demand for safer assets.
The U.S. dollar index rose 0.24% to 90.76 by 18:00(GMT+8).
The dollar slipped 0.1% to 104.63 yen, further retreating from the 2-1/2-month high of 104.94 touched on Friday.
The euro was little changed at $1.2132, as it continued to dither in a narrow range.
The riskier Aussie dollar dipped following new signs of weakness in the recovery in China, a key customer for Australian commodities.
Data from the weekend showed China's factory recovery slowed in January, hobbled by a wave of coronavirus infections.
Crude Oil
Oil prices rose on Monday after a weak start, adding to the gains of the last three months, although patchy coronavirus vaccine rollouts, new infections, and the discovery of new variants are casting a shadow over the demand outlook.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was at $52.410 barrel, fell 0.55%, Brent was down to $55.407 a barrel, rose 0.71% by 18:00(GMT+8).
Oil prices have been boosted by vaccination programmes getting underway in hard-hit countries and output cuts by major producers like Saudi Arabia. But the euphoria over a possible end to the pandemic has been undermined by the slow pace of vaccinations and the rise of new variants of the coronavirus.
Still, with more vaccines proving successful in trials and infections falling in some areas, demand for oil and fuel is likely to pick up as more of the world's population gets inoculated against COVID-19.
"Our base-case remains for a demand-led rebalancing of the oil market, with the logistical challenges of vaccination likely transient and evidence of still elevated vaccine efficacy," Goldman Sachs said in a new report, while noting that the rally of recent weeks had paused.
Oil prices are expected to remain around current levels for most of this year before a recovery gains ground towards the end of 2021, a Reuters poll showed late on Friday.
Stocks
Stocks in Asia-Pacific were higher on Monday trade.
Nikkei 225 rose 427.66 points or 1.55%, close at 28,091.05.
S&P/ASX 200 rose 55.60 points or 0.84% to close at 6,663.00.
Hang Seng Index rose 609.15 or 2.15% to 28,892.86.
South Korea's Kospi rose 80.32 points or 2.70% to 3,056.53.
Taiwan capitalization-weighted stock index rose 271.78 points, or 1.80%, at 15,410.09.
Bank of America was ringing alarm bells over equities on Friday because it warned a correction is looming.
"3R's of rates, regulation, redistribution are the historic catalysts that end bull markets & bubbles…we say all '21 events, not '22, and all spell lower/volatile coming quarters/years," stated Michael Hartnett, chief funding strategist at the financial institution, in the Flow Show word to purchasers.
President Biden's top economic adviser said the administration will take a look at the legal questions surrounding the roller-coaster ride GameStop took last week as small-dollar traders squared off against well-heeled hedge fund managers, sending its stock soaring to astronomical levels.
RobinHood, the popular stock trading app, prompted widespread criticism when it temporarily halted trading on GameStop until backing off on Friday.
Focus Tonight
22:45 (GMT+8): United States Markit Manufacturing PMI Final (JAN), Forecast:5390K, Previous: 5337K;
23:00 (GMT+8): United States ISM Manufacturing PMI (JAN), Forecast: 60, Previous: 60.7;
Bonus rebate to help investors grow in the trading world!