Silver down Rs 740

Silver prices nosedived by Rs 740 per kilo at the bullion market here on Wednesday due to heavy selling pressure from stockists after a steep fall in the global prices.

Gold also crashed due to frantic selling in line with subdued overseas advices.

In the international markets, gold suffered the most because of heavy selling after a sharp rally in the dollar following US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's statement that the US interest rates might rise soon.

This diverted investors' attention towards the US currency, dealers said.

Heavy selling in gold led to a sell-off in silver as well and the white metal declined sharply.

Ready silver (.999 fineness) opened weak at Rs 10,335 and continued to fall sharply on stockists' increased offering before closing at Rs 10,270, showing a whopping Rs 740 fall over yesterday's close of Rs 11,010.

In London, the metal was quoted sharply weak at $6.51/6.55 per ounce, dealers said.

Standard gold (99.5 purity) also started sharply lower at Rs 5,755, but found some buying towards the fag-end and recovered to close at Rs 5,765, still revealing a steep fall of Rs 75 over the previous close of Rs 5,840.

Similarly, pure gold (99.9 purity), after a notably weak start at Rs 5,800, recovered some of the early losses and closed at Rs 5,810, showing a sharp loss of Rs 70 over the last close of Rs 5,880.