Gold & Silver Market 6-27-2015
Last week was another bad one for the precious metal sector. Every major metal fell sharply except platinum, with gold and silver both coming off the upward trend they’d been on for the previous couple of weeks and dropping back to where they were at the start of June. At the same time US equities also fell sharply, paralleling a steep drop in China’s Shanghai Consolidated Index. Meanwhile there were some significant movements between the dollar and Euro, probably attracting many investors to the foreign exchange market. Overall the markets are highly confused at the moment and it’s hard to predict where things are going to go.
The decline in the gold market was particularly dramatic. It started in weekend trading and continued through the week, although the rate it fell at slowed towards the end of the week. Gold had already lost the previous period’s gains by the time the markets opened on Monday and by Friday afternoon the spot price was sitting at just $1,174.20. Overall that’s a loss of $26.10, not the largest we’ve seen this year but still a definite reversal of the mid-June trend.
The picture with silver wasn’t quite as clear; it started the week looking as if it was going to recover from its own weekend losses and made slow but steady gains through Wednesday. Then on Thursday it went into freefall again, finally closing at $15.745 an ounce. That’s 34.5 cents down on the week before, again not the largest loss but still significant. It’s probably a good idea to hold off buying silver until the price hits a hard floor and shows signs of a sustained recovery.
Platinum was the exception to the week’s trend. It also lost badly over the weekend but when trading opened on Monday it began a strong recovery. That lasted through to late Thursday, when the price slipped back slightly, but on Friday it stabilized. The closing price was $1,080, exactly where it stood a week earlier. The driver for that was likely to be industrial demand as the US economy continues to recover from its first quarter slump.
It was also a bad week for palladium. By the start of trading on Monday it was already more than $10 below the previous Friday’s close, taking it down through $700. On Monday and Tuesday it crept up slightly then started to fall again. The final price was $677, putting it $33 down over the week. That’s a major loss for palladium, more than 4 percent, and is likely to persuade a lot of investors to start moving out.
And lastly there’s rhodium. It had a slow start to the week, but picked up downward velocity on Tuesday and the fall steepened on Wednesday. It then kept dropping fast, closing the period at $885. That’s $70, or almost 8 percent, below the week before. Rhodium’s been looking weak for a long time but this is its worst one-week loss in over ten months.
So not a good week at all, with one metal static and the other four down. This week is completely up in the air though; there’s no solid rise in shares that would depress metal, so it’s probably a reaction to the generally nervous market. We’ll just need to see what happens.
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. 
