There was an extraordinary overnight move in precious metals which saw both gold and silver soar. From Friday’s close to the overnight high, silver added 1.7% which was impressive enough. But gold rallied 3.5% between the same two points before both metals gave back all these gains and fell into negative territory for the day. There are several factors which can help explain the move. The first is that gold closed at a record high of $2,072 at the end of last week. This would have triggered a flurry of buy orders, a mixture of fresh longs and the closure of distressed shorts. This happened in the Asian Pacific session at the start of the week which tends to be a time of poor liquidity, so price moves are magnified. Secondly, gold and silver appear to be entering a period where they switch from being of little interest to investors to catching the spotlight. If so, we should expect volatility to jump as trading volumes increase.