European-listed miners jumped on Monday, as U.S. retail interest pushed futures on silver up to an eight-year high.
Fresnillo
FRES,
+18.17%,
Mexico’s second-largest silver miner, jumped 17% in London. Anglo-Russian gold and silver miner Polymetal
POLY,
+7.72%
rose 8%, and Polish silver and copper miner KGHM Polska Miedz
KGH,
+1.70%
added 2%.
Silver futures
SI00,
+11.47%
rose as much as 13%.
The gains in silver illustrate the wild moves in certain stocks and assets over the last week, initially fueled by a short squeeze on the U.S. videogames retailer GameStop
GME,
+67.87%
fuelled on the Reddit message board that has spread to other assets.
“Influencing the price of silver will not be as easy as a single small or medium sized single equity. Silver’s market cap is in the range of $1.4 trillion to $1.6 trillion as opposed to GameStop’s $1.5 billion before becoming the target of retail investors, and a large proportion of the market is off-exchange. However, it will be interesting to see the small players’ power and how much further they can push prices,” said Hussein Sayed, chief market strategist at FXTM.
After a rough week in which it lost 3.1%, the Stoxx Europe 600
SXXP,
+1.43%
rose 1.1% on Monday.
U.S. stock futures
ES00,
+1.08%
also were higher.
Of stocks on the move, JD Sports Fashion
JD,
+6.24%
rose 6% after agreeing to buy DTLR Villa, a Baltimore-based athletic footwear and apparel retailer with 247 stores, for $495 million. In the 52 weeks ended Feb. 1, DTLR had earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of $45.6 million.
Klépierre
LI,
-5.08%
declined, as the shopping-mall operator said 88% of its French malls are closed, as are nonessential shops in Italy, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Barcelona and Oviedo in Spain, and Oslo in Norway.
