Zinc and lead miners have had their silver lining taken out.
The price of the precious metal fell abruptly to an 11-year low of $11.80 per oz in the week to Thursday March 19, having traded close to multi-year highs mere days previously.
Investors dumped silver, a precious metal that in physical form is mostly used in industrial applications, as part of a wide selloff in liquid asset classes on fears about economies halting if efforts to stop the spread of the 2019-nCoV coronavirus infection spark a global recession.
Geologically, zinc, lead and silver are often mined together, with one of them operating as a by-product and lowering the costs of extracting the dominant product.
But with all three metals facing price falls, miners face a challenge when it comes to selling product for more than the costs of production.
"This is a massively testing time for the lead-zinc...