Gold & Silver Market 4-27-2015
Last week wasn’t a good one in the precious metals market, with all the main prices registering a loss. Palladium did come very close to holding its value over the period but the others all dropped, sometimes sharply. The main cause seems to have been a generally good week for equities, with the Dow Jones and FTSE 100 both climbing. There’s also been a slight revival in the oil market, with prices starting to climb out of the narrow band they’ve been stuck in for the last month or so. Again that’s going to draw interest away from precious metals.
The gold price often sets the trend for the rest of the metals market, and last week started out looking fairly good – gold had fallen over the weekend but climbed encouragingly on Monday. That coincided with a dip in the Dow Jones, but share prices rose again on Tuesday and gold dropped in response. By Friday it was down to $1,180.40, $25.20 below its previous close.
Silver had an even worse week than gold, starting to slide as soon as trading began on Monday and losing close to 40 cents by Wednesday. It seemed to be turning around for a few hours on Thursday but then fell again, closing the week at $15.75. That’s a drop of 50 cents over the Friday before, a more substantial loss than we’ve seen for a while. Confidence in silver as an investment, which had looked to be recovering slightly, seems to be fading again. Futures prices are also down, although not as sharply as the spot price.
Moving on to the platinum group, platinum itself followed almost the same trajectory as gold with an initial rise on Monday followed by a rapid fall. Again it picked up a few dollars on Thursday, when the Dow’s rise slowed down, then dropped again when it became clear that equities were still gaining. It ended the week at $1,123, $46 down over the period. For the foreseeable future it looks like platinum is going to stay slightly cheaper than gold, a reversal of its traditional positioning.
Palladium was the only precious metal that didn’t lose out significantly; it did drop sharply through to Wednesday, like the others, but managed to regain most of it on Thursday and held on through the rest of the period. It finished down, at $768 – a loss of $15 – but looked to be in a much stronger position than the rest of the sector.
Then finally there’s rhodium. After a long period of little movement this metal seems to have come back to life again since mid-April, but unfortunately the trend is relentlessly down. The decline we saw in the previous period just got steeper last week; by Friday the spot price was at $1,055, down another $21 over the period. If you’re holding rhodium this looks like a good time to sell off and move to palladium.
So a discouraging week, but not a disastrous one. Metal prices definitely seem to be moving in response to equities again and there are some reasons to believe those could fall over the next few months, so if you’re willing to take a chance there could be some great opportunities over the next few weeks.
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. 
