Gold & Silver Market 10-3-2015
We saw a wide range of movements across the precious metals sector last week, with some up, some down and one – rhodium, to nobody’s surprise – not going anywhere at all. On balance it looks like a pretty good performance though, because there weren’t any really major drops despite it being a generally good week for equities. The major stock exchanges did start to come under pressure on Friday thanks to much poorer than expected nonfarm payroll figures, but overall share prices were up across the period and that usually means metals go down. None of them did by enough to raise any concerns, so for now the sector looks reasonably strong.
Gold first, and this was one of the week’s losers – but not by enough to justify serious worries, and it ended the week moving very firmly in the right direction. Gold was already slipping from some unfavorable weekend trading by the time the markets opened Monday and it kept going down until midweek, followed by a slight rally and a further slump Friday morning. When the US job figures were released it rebounded strongly though and ended the period at $1,138.40. That’s just $7.90 below its previous close and in the circumstances is a reasonable performance.
Many traders have been watching silver with a lot of interest recently, as it seems to be slowly regaining investor confidence after a long run of weakness. Last week turned out to be a good one for the metal despite an unpromising start. From a loss of close to 4 percent through Thursday it bounced back fast when the US markets opened for the final trading day and ended the week at $15.265 – 14 cents higher than the Friday before. It’s a modest increase, but set against the trend in equities any increase at all is a good result.
On the other hand platinum has been losing ground recently and that continued last week. The spot price suffered badly in weekend trading and continued down through to early Friday, reaching a new five-year low of $899. It followed the other metals up when the jobs data were release however, closing the period at $910. That’s $35, or a bit over three percent, below where it was the week before; not a good result but somewhere short of being disastrous. Nevertheless for the moment we wouldn’t advise buying platinum – there are other metals that give you better odds of a short to medium term profit.
One of those options is palladium, which seemed to escape the early slump almost unscathed then began climbing strongly on Thursday. By the end of trading Friday it was at $698 and still looking healthy. That’s a $38 gain over the week, almost 5 percent. It could be the market has decided palladium lost too much ground recently and we’re seeing a return to more realistic prices.
Finally rhodium, which had another extremely sluggish week and didn’t move from $760. For now this is another metal we don’t recommend buying.
Overall, then, a mixed week but with more positives than negatives. If equities slow down this week we should see some gains for gold, silver and palladium, so look at your portfolio and see where you can add some potential winners.
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. 
