Precious metals: Silver worst performer while palladium sole gainer

Silver proved to be the worst performer on Tuesday, 7 April, while palladium stood the odd man out by continuing its upward trend with the dollar extending Monday's gains helped by euro's losses.

Gold had touched a seven week high of $1224 on Monday but the downward pressure on Tuesday took it down 0.57% on the day to as low as $1207.37 around noon in Europe.

Silver plunged more than 1.5% to as low as $16.71 distancing further from the previous day's peak of $17.12, which was just a shade below the six-week high of $17.39 touched on 26 March.

Platinum also dropped following the lead of other major precious metals. It fell 1.3% on the day to $1160, moving further off the one-month high of $1186 fetched on Monday.

Palladium, on the other hand, rallied to an 11-day high of $777.93, up 1.3% on the day, distancing further off the 14-month low of $722 touched on 30 March.

Palladium mostly moves on the supply-demand dynamics and with most of its stocks and sales dominated by Russia, many known and unknown factors keep weighing on the metal thanks to that country's troubled international relations.

According to a recent report by HSBC, dwindling Chinese demand is one major factor behind the steep fall of palladium prices. Net palladium imports by China fell 54% in February and that of palladium dropped 56%, the lowest level since 2009.

The dollar index has rallied 0.6% to as high as 97.73 on Tuesday, extending the 0.4% jump over the previous session. EUR/USD fell 0.8% to 1.0874, adding to the 0.51% slide on Monday.