Gold & Silver Market 8-23-2015
Last week was a mixed one for precious metals with three of the key commodities – including gold and silver – seeing respectable price rises, while some losses hit the platinum group. The main driver for the gains looks to have been the freefall in equities, which saw most exchanges around the world sliding fast for much or all of the period. There were multiple factors behind this, including China’s export woes, a renewed Greek debt crisis and weak US manufacturing figures. Add in the continued decline of crude oil prices and it’s not too surprising that the most-traded precious metals made some progress.
At first gold looked like having an unexciting week, with little movement over the weekend or on Monday. Then, as the Dow Jones began to drop on Tuesday, the gold price took off and kept climbing all week. By the end of Friday’s trading it had gained $46.60 to close at $1,160.40. That’s a decent performance, and hopefully one we’ll see repeated this week. Unless there’s a major reversal in equities another good week for gold looks like the most likely result.
Silver didn’t do quite as well as gold, although it did close almost 11 cents up at $15.35. Its high for the week was 30 cents higher but the price corrected sharply downwards when the US markets opened on Friday. There’s no obvious technical reason why silver should be performing so much less strongly than gold, so a lingering lack of confidence is the most probable cause. However if equities stay weak, and silver keeps picking up value, investor trust will inevitably return at some point.
On to the platinum group, and platinum itself was the only winner here last week. We predicted that the spot price would end last week above the $1,000 point, and it did. In fact the closing price on Friday was $1,026, a full $36 higher than the week before. That’s not far short of gold’s performance. Industrial demand for platinum is stable or declining slightly, so it seems clear that last week’s surge in interest was purely for its value as a safe investment.
The other platinum group metals, unfortunately, didn’t do so well. Palladium crashed as soon as trading began on Monday, dropping rapidly to below $600 – its lowest price in three years. Tuesday and Wednesday saw a strong recovery and for a while it looked as if it would come out ahead after all, but on Friday the price fell once more to close at $602 – $16 down on the week before.
Rhodium seemed stable at the beginning of the week, but fell on Wednesday then settled at $865; that’s where it stayed until Friday, a fall of $25. It’s not a major loss but still disappointing.
Overall it looks like investor desire for a safe haven drove the rise of gold, silver and platinum. Palladium and rhodium tend to be affected more by industrial than bullion demand, and they both slipped; the poor performance of Chinese, and to some extent US, manufacturing is likely behind this. For traders spooked by the fall in share values, however, bullion seems to have been irresistible last week. This could be a good time to look at expanding your own holdings.
About the Author: Clint Stelfox
Clint is the director of marketing at Golden Eagle Coins. Son of Richard Stelfox, co-founder of the company, Clint has been living and breathing coins his entire life. After trading for a Philadelphia Stock Exchange firm for several years Clint returned to give Golden Eagle the online presence it has today. 
