Shares of silver mining companies charged out of the gate Friday, posting huge gains shortly after the opening bell as the price of white metal surged.

Silver Wheaton Corp. was up 4.4 percent, Pan American Silver Corp. added 4 percent, Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp. shot up 7.1 percent, Silver Standard Resources Inc. gained 2.6 percent, Silvercorp Metals Inc. was higher by 4.3 percent and Endeavour Silver Corp. picked up 3.8 percent.

The price of silver on the CME Comex division on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 3.3 percent in early trading to $42.04 per ounce.

Also, iShares Silver Trust, an exchange-traded fund whose assets are backed by physical silver climbed 3.3 percent.

Other stocks rose as well, including large tech companies. Google Inc., Oracle Corp. Intel Corp., Amazon, Dell Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. were all higher shortly after the opening bell, and Clearwire Corp., which provides wireless broadband service, rocketed up 36 percent. That helped push the beaten down, tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index into positive territory.

That boosted the Nasdaq composite index nearly 1 percent. Other major indexes also rose.

The interest rate on 10-year Treasuries edged fractionally higher, indicating that investors who have been flocking to the perceived safety of U.S. government debt were ready to put their money into riskier assets, including silver mining companies.

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