Gold and Silver Market Update (12/28/14) – Golden Eagle
It was hard to pick up any clear trends in the precious metals market last week, with performances varying across the sector. Most were up a fraction but the two main metals didn’t really go anywhere at all. It was a confusing end to what’s been a pretty confusing year. On the other hand after some of the weeks we’ve seen this quarter it could have been a lot worse, and there was definitely some good news in there.
Firstly, gold. This took a big hit in weekend trading and stayed low most of the week, before recovering on Friday to close at $1,195.85. That’s more or less where it was the week before, so no real movement. Most analysts think its fall was caused by fears of a gold selloff by the Russian central bank, but for now that seems to be off the cards – probably leading to Friday’s sharp rise. The week’s low was $1,174.90 on Wednesday but it hovered around that level most of the week, which points to predictions of support around $1,175 being close to the mark.
Silver followed a similar pattern, falling 40 cents on Sunday to begin last week at $15.66. It slowly made back ground through Wednesday, then jumped sharply Friday morning to peak over $16.30. When the markets closed the spot price stood at $16.07, a weekly gain of exactly a cent.
Platinum has been struggling recently but last week it managed to do a lot better; weekend trading saw it slide $15 from its previous close of $1,196, but by Friday it had gained all that back and more. The final trades went through at $1,217, with $25 of that increase coming on Friday.
The trend for weekend markets seems to have been down but palladium bucked that last week, picking up a few dollars on Sunday only to drop hard when trading started Monday morning. It bottomed out around $803 on Wednesday before climbing back to $815 by Friday afternoon. That’s just $4 up on the previous period, so while it’s better than gold or silver it still doesn’t really amount to much.
Rhodium’s been looking interesting for a couple of weeks now and that continued last week. After crashing from a highly overvalued 2010 peak of close to $3,000, it then overcompensated and bottomed out a year ago around $900. Since then it’s been creeping slowly back up and that trend looks to be still in place. A good day on Monday took it up $25 to $1,145, and that’s where it stayed for the rest of the week. It’s slow progress but it seems to be firmly established now, so rhodium looks like a winner in the short to medium term.
Overall the precious metal market has been highly volatile this year, with broader financial and world events adding to more direct factors to throw a lot of cherished trend models out the window. It’s been hard to predict where prices will go week to week, but for now all the prices are still at or below the bottom edge of what we think is reasonable. That means there are profits built into the current situation just as soon as prices rise to a more natural level. Hopefully we’ll see that happen early in 2015.
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. 
