by Frank Holmes, Gold Seek:

Strengths

• The best performing precious metal for the week was silver, up 2.06%. Silver just wrapped up a fourth quarterly gain, the longest run for the precious metal since 2011. A fifth advance over the final three months of the year looks to be a decent prospect. The drivers here are familiar, and rest more on silver’s role as a financial asset than its use as an industrial input — a Federal Reserve that is cutting interest rates; a weaker U.S. dollar; and rising ETF holdings will combine to lift prices, according to Bloomberg.