SINGAPORE, April 5 (Reuters) - Silver jumped to its highest since early 1980 on Tuesday on inflation concerns and a rise in ETF holdings to another record, while gold edged down as the euro held below this week's five-month high versus the dollar.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Spot silver rose as high as $38.72 an ounce and was quoted at $38.68 an ounce by 0046 GMT, up 26 cents. Gold eased 45 cents to $1,436.10 an ounce.
* U.S. gold futures for June rose $4.5 an ounce to $1,437.5 an ounce.
* IShares Silver Trust said its holdings rose to another record at 11,162.45 tonnes by April 4 from 11,139.52 tonnes on March 24. [ID:nL3E7F5019]
* Analysts remain wary of silver's extreme volatility, which has led to some heart-stopping reversals in recent years. When commodities sold off heavily in mid-March, silver dropped nearly 5 percent in a single day, versus gold's 2 percent fall. [ID:nLDE7331DB]
MARKET NEWS
* The euro held below this week's five-month high against the dollar and 11-month peak versus the yen on Tuesday as investors paused to assess how much it can make in fresh gains given that expectations for interest rate rises have largely been priced in.
* Japan's Nikkei nudged higher on Tuesday, but was set to trade in a tight range for a third day, as the post-quake rebound looks to have run its course, with resource-related shares climbing on surging commodity prices.
* Oil prices rose to their highest since 2008 on Monday, with Brent surging above $121 a barrel as Nigerian election delays and a short-lived strike in Gabon joined a list of geopolitical supply concerns.
DATA EVENTS (GMT)
0430 Australia RBA cash rate Apr 2011 0758 EZ Markit Services PMI Mar 2011 1145 U.S. ICSC chain stores yy Weekly 1400 U.S. ISM N-Mfg PMI Mar 1400 U.S. ISM N-Mfg Bus Act Mar
Precious metals prices 0046 GMT Metal Last Change Pct chg YTD pct chg Turnover Spot Gold 1436.10 -0.45 -0.03 1.17 Spot Silver 38.68 0.26 +0.68 25.34 Spot Platinum 1783.99 4.54 +0.26 0.93 Spot Palladium 784.25 4.75 +0.61 -1.91 TOCOM Gold 3901.00 24.00 +0.62 4.61 19151 TOCOM Platinum 4870.00 58.00 +1.21 3.71 6178 TOCOM Silver 105.00 1.90 +1.84 29.63 1333 TOCOM Palladium 2138.00 31.00 +1.47 1.96 111 Euro/Dollar 1.4212 Dollar/Yen 84.29 TOCOM prices in yen per gram. Spot prices in $ per ounce. (Reporting by Lewa Pardomuan; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
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