US markets open higher with silver on focus

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Major indexes in the US stock market opened higher Monday to kick off February in a higher note, while price of silver has skyrocketed around 11%.

The Dow Jones was up 234 points, or 0.7%, to 30,216 points, while the S&P 500 was rose 36 points, or 1%, to 3,750 points.

The Nasdaq gained 180 points, or 1.4%, to 13,255 points at 9.37 a.m. EDT (1437 GMT).

Price of silver at the time was almost at $30 an ounce, its highest level since February 2013. Its daily gain of 11% became the largest single-day increase in 11 years.

The sudden rally in silver came amid retail traders in the Reddit forum WallStreetBets claimed silver was underpriced and have started opening long positions.

The retail traders, who own relatively smaller capital, have also increased their buy and hold positions in heavily shorted stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment in recent weeks and drove their prices significantly higher.

GameStop shares were down 5% after market opening but AMC shares were up 23%.

The retail traders have also organized through social media to pump the price of Ripple up on Monday, but that failed to find much traction.

The cryptocurrency, which has legal struggles with the US' Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since December, saw jumping nearly 70% during the weekend.

Although Ripple climbed to $0.75 around 6.00 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT), it was dumped by bears and posted a massive slide to around $0.44 when the US markets opened.

Crude oil prices were up almost 2% at the time with Brent crude around $56 per barrel and American West Texas Intermediate around $53 a barrel as OPEC and Russia are expected not to lower their production cuts facing rising prices but stick to their deal of curbing output in their meeting on Wednesday.

Amid talks of a reported megamerger between ExxonMobil and Chevron, the US' two largest oil producers, the firms saw their shares climb by more than 1% before market opening but they later stayed flat.