Silver prices jumped to a five-month high in overseas trading Monday morning as social media users begin buying up the commodity.
Spot silver gained more than 7% to reach $28.80 a troy ounce, its highest level since August. Meanwhile, shares of several small silver mining firms traded in Australia, saw their shares gain better than 15%. Coin-selling websites also reported massive increases in demand.
Silver is up 15% since Wednesday of last week. The sudden price increase is being attributed to Reddit users encouraging others to buy the metal and drive-up prices. There are posts on the “Wall Street Bets” forum, for example, encouraging a “short squeeze” similar to the squeeze that helped drive Gamestop shares up more than 1500%.