Silver Prices Slip 5 Percent

Silver fell almost 5 percent amid speculation that stockpiles are sufficient to provide metal owed to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which holds contracts equal to a fifth of world supply.

Berkshire Hathaway said a month ago that it expected delivery by today of up to a third of the 129.7 million ounces of silver it had purchased since July. The company, which has said it could extend the deadline if necessary, declined to comment.

“The scuttle is that there were no problems making deliveries to Buffett, so the market got soft,” said Vincent Lanci, a managing partner at Berard Capital Management in New York.

Silver for May delivery fell 28.8 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $6.03 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.