In early Asian deals on Friday precious metals regained from their previous session lows.

At 0215 GMT, spot gold was up nearly 1% from its late New York level, rising $14.20 to $1,487.30 a troy ounce. Silver, whose 27% fall since last week has been the most severe since at least the mid-1990s, added 84 cents to $35.50/oz.

The sharp move down in the metals over the past week has capped an extraordinary run which saw spot gold rise to an all-time record of $1,576.52/oz early on Monday while silver peaked at $49.831/oz the previous Monday, a 31-year high only outstripped during the Hunt brothers' notorious attempt to corner the global silver market in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Even more bullish market participants said that a return to those levels is unlikely in the short term. Nigel Phelan, Asia director of ETF Securities, a company running exchange-traded funds in all four major precious metals, said he would be surprised to see silver climb back to $40/oz in the immediate term.

"The price was pretty much overdone," he said. "The thing people need to realise is that the precious metals space is volatile. We're going to see these peaks and troughs."