PRECIOUS-Silver slips 10 pct, gold off record
(Recasts, adds details and quotes)
SINGAPORE May 2 (Reuters) - Silver prices tumbled by 10 percent early on Monday, with spot prices sliding to as low as $42.58 an ounce and futures dipping to $42.20 in volatile, holiday-thinned trade.
By 0009 GMT, spot silver stood at $43.32 an ounce, down 9.4 percent on the day, while COMEX silver for July delivery SIcv1 traded at $44.075 an ounce versus $48.599 on Friday.
"The reduction in COMEX length before the weekend, margin increase and holidays in large parts of Asia and Europe set the stage for a move like this," said Natalie Robertson, analyst at ANZ in Melbourne.
Speculators scaled back their bullish bets in COMEX silver futures and options to the lowest level since early February, regulator data showed on Friday. [ID:nN29175149]
Speculators in COMEX silver held a net long position 25,791 lots in the week ending April 26, cutting 5,413 lots, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed.
The CME Group Inc said on Thursday it would raise maintenance margins for COMEX silver futures by 13.2 percent to $10,750 per contract from $9,500 effective Friday, April 29.
Spot gold prices fell 0.7 percent to $1,552.30 an ounce, after earlier touching an all-time high of $1,575.79.
Some traders put silver's spectacular fall down to an unwind of a short gold-silver ratio position, compounded by automated stop-loss orders.
"Precious metals basically turned around in illiquid markets on snippets of news that suggest that the risk profile will change," said Jonathan Barratt, managing director at Commodity Broking Services in Sydney.
"Silver was also off the board in terms of technicals and the market decided to just smack it in the head." (Reporting by Nick Trevethan and Alejandro Barbajosa; Editing by Michael Urquhart)
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