UNITED STATES January 05 2016 7:01 PM

NEW YORK (Scrap Register): United States silver scrap prices rose on Monday in line with silver futures prices at New York Mercantile Exchange after prices spiked higher amid mounting geopolitical tensions in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran over the weekend.

The major silver scrap commodities on the Scrap Register Price Index traded up on Monday. The hallmarked silver scrap prices advanced to $11.748 an ounce and non-hallmarked silver scrap prices gained to $10.231 an ounce.

The most active March silver contract on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange settled up by 1.15% to $13.841 an ounce on Monday.

The move followed a weekend storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran in response to the kingdom's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. With the first U.S. rate hike since 2006 out of the way, investors are now focusing on the pace of future rate increases.