Gold and Silver Market Update (11/30/14) – Golden Eagle
After a fairly good mid-month perfoemance for the precious metal market, which seemed to signal an upturn, things went south again last week. Most of the benchmark metals fell and in some cases the decline was dramatic. Given the unexciting track record of equities over the same period it’s hard to be sure exactly what went wrong but general worries about the global economy could be to blame. It looks like investors are holding off right now, but not nervous enough to start bailing out of stocks and moving to a commodity-based hedge position.
Firstly, gold. The spot price had been rising modestly but steadily for three consecutive weeks, and through Monday it looked like this trend was set to continue. Then a small retrenchment on Tuesday turned into an accelerating slide that didn’t stop until Friday afternoon, and by close of trading gold was down $33.60 to end up at $1,158.50. That’s almost wiped out all the previous gains and brought the price back to near its four-year low, ending any realistic hopes of selling at a profit for the rest of this year. The one hopeful note is that the price did stabilize on Friday, and could be poised for a recovery this week.
Silver followed the same pattern as gold, holding up well for the first 36 hours then dropping sharply. This was less unexpected because the price has been weak for a lot longer and has only been climbing for two weeks, but even so few observers thought it would fall this hard. By the end of the week it was down over 5 percent, registering an 86 cent loss to close at $15.58. Any rebuilding confidence is likely to have been shattered by that, so psychological as well as concrete gains have been wiped out.
Platinum slid back too, although it wasn’t hit quite as hard as gold or silver. Last week’s $1,222 fell to $1,197 – a $25 fall. Again most of the damage was done on Friday.
Things weren’t so bad in the rest of the platinum group. Palladium has outperformed most of the other metals this year and it’s back in that position; it managed to hold its value through the early part of the week then bucked the trend and began to rise. When the markets closed on Friday it was sitting at $805, $16 up on the week before. Industrial demand for palladium is particularly strong and that’s helped it through this summer and fall; we expect that trend to continue.
Finally rhodium, and there really isn’t anything to report here; the price barely moved all week, finishing exactly where it started on Monday – $1,135. That’s down $17 on the previous period after some losses in weekend trading, but it seems to have settled down for now.
After the gains of the week before this has been a disappointing period for metals traders, even more so because there’s no obvious reason for it. The one bright spot is that metals generally held up better than oil, with crude prices now through their four-year low and 11 percent losses posted on Friday alone. Let’s wait and see what happens this week.
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. 
