Silver Price Analysis: XAG/USD trades with modest gains near $23.00, bearish bias remains

• Silver attracts buyers on Thursday and snaps a three-day losing streak to the weekly low.
• The technical setup supports prospects for the emergence of fresh selling at higher levels.
• Bears might wait for a break below $22.70 or the monthly low before placing fresh bets.

Silver (XAG/USD) gains some positive traction on Thursday and for now, seems to have snapped a three-day losing streak to the weekly low, around the $22.80-$22.75 region touched the previous day. The white metal sticks to its intraday gains through the first half of the European session and currently trades around the $23.00 round figure, up 0.60% for the day.

From a technical perspective, any subsequent move up is likely to confront resistance near the 100-day Simple Moving Average (SMA), currently pegged near the $23.30 region. This is followed by a multi-month-old ascending trend-line support breakpoint, around the $23.60 region, which now coincides with the 200-day SMA and should act as a key pivotal point. A sustained strength beyond the latter might trigger a short-covering rally and lift the XAG/USD to the $23.80 horizontal resistance en route to the $24.00 round-figure mark.

Some follow-through buying will suggest that the recent corrective downfall since late December has run its course and shift the bias in favour of bullish traders. The XAG/USD might then accelerate the positive momentum towards the $24.60 area, or the December 22 high, before aiming back towards reclaiming the $25.00 psychological mark. That said, oscillators on the daily chart are holding deep in the negative territory and support prospects for the emergence of fresh selling at higher levels. This, in turn, favours bearish traders and suggests that the path of least resistance for the white metal remains to the downside.

That said, it will still be prudent to wait for weakness below a multi-week low, around the $22.70 region touched last Thursday before positioning for the resumption of the recent depreciating move witnessed over the past two weeks or so. The XAG/USD might then turn vulnerable to weaken further below the December monthly swing low, around the mid-$22.00s and test the next relevant support near the $22.25 region before eventually dropping further towards the $22.00 round-figure mark.

Silver daily chart

Technical levels to watch