Silver rose to its highest levels ever, by more than $60 an ounce, as traders continued betting on further monetary easing from the Federal Reserve and continued tight inventories. The spot silver price rose 3.2% to $60.0031 an ounce. The metal has more than doubled this year, outperforming gold by a large margin. The rapid rise in recent days has been driven largely by expectations that the US central bank will approve a quarter-point rate cut at the end of its December 9-10 meeting. Despite traders’ caution about the amount of monetary relief the Federal Reserve may provide next year, silver is benefiting from expectations of an almost certain tapering on Wednesday. Also read: Paul is on track to cut interest rates despite the Fed’s split. Rona Akunnell, head of market analysis at StoneX Financial, said traders are “definitely looking forward to lower interest rates.” Precious metals, which do not generate a yield – including gold and silver – usually benefit from falling interest rates. Tight silver supply Most of silver’s gains this year have come in the past two months, supported by historically tight supply in the benchmark London market amid rising demand from India and silver-backed exchange-traded funds. Although this bottleneck has eased in recent weeks with more metal flowing into London’s vaults, other markets have experienced supply constraints. Chinese inventories fell to the lowest level in a decade. A drop in silver shares in China puts the burning market on the brink of a new danger. Silver surpassed the October peak in a volatile trading session, after a chaotic halt in futures and options trading on the Comex in late November led to a drying up of liquidity. The holiday season and weak physical trading in the London OTC market also contributed to the exaggeration of price movements. Traders remain wary of shipping silver out of the United States due to concerns related to customs duties, after it was added to the US Geological Survey’s list of essential minerals, keeping certain quantities within the US market.