Covid-19 hits silver prices hard

2020 did not start off well if the first quarter of the year is any indication of what is to be expected for the rest of the year. What started of as "another flu-like virus" in a province in central China, has exploded into a global pandemic with far-reaching humanitarian and economic impact. Dominating most of the world's headlines these days, the Covid-19 coronavirus has spread from China and can now be found in Asia, Europe and North America.

Global supply chains were one of the first economic casualties with Wuhan, a major Chinese hardware manufacturing hub for various global industries. Travel was another sector that was severely hurt by the pandemic as people shied away from confined places such as planes and cruise ships for fear of contracting the disease with social distancing becoming a new by-word in recent days.

Aside from reports of frenzied stockpiling of necessities, the domino effect of more and more countries reporting positive Covid-19 cases have sparked real fears in the financial markets in the past week.