By Alan Fein

(AXcess News) New York - Silver broke through the $14 price barrier early Monday morning with precious metals analysts believing silver will face less resistance than gold in the current commodity market.

Silver futures were trading up 14 cents, or above 1%, at $14.02 per ounce Monday Luly 27, 2009 at 10am ET.  Gold futures were up $1.10 at $957 per ounce, which StandardBank commodity analyst Walter de Wet says, "faces more resistance than silver" at these price benchmarks.

"While the physical gold market is unlikely to be the main driver of any spikes in the gold price (a sharp spike is likely to be driven by investment demand), it is a very important component of gold demand," said de Wet. "But scrap selling is likely to come with a delayed response to higher prices. This, we believe, makes a spike in the gold price likely, but unsustainable at the current value of the US dollar."

The StandardBank analyst explained, "We have seen resistance from the physical market twice this year - in February and May. In both cases, it capped the gold price."

Gold is finding very good support above $945, and strong resistance at $957 - $960. Should gold break above $960, the next level of resistance would be at $966.

On silver, de Wet said, "We still believe that it will outperform gold in the current market environment. Support is at $13.73 and $13.47, with resistance at $14.18 and $14.36."

Sentiment has turned increasingly bullish over the past couple of weeks, with increased risk appetite seeing money flow back into commodities generally. The surge in commodity prices over the past few months also appears to have triggered a bit of panic buying by those participants that have so far stood on the sidelines, and now think are at risk of missing the boat completely.

The commodity analysts at StandardBank noted that gold options on the COMEX expire tomorrow and "it could provide some incentive to market players to keep the gold price above $950."