Gold & Silver Market 6-8-2015
Last week was again disappointing for precious metals with significant falls right across the sector. Silver and some of the platinum group saw the heaviest losses but none of the key prices escaped, which is always disturbing – especially when there’s no rise in equity values to explain it. Instead it looks like the main driver is the continued volatility in currency markets, with the Euro starting its latest mini-recovery against the dollar. FOREX looks to be the most exciting sector right now, with nothing happening to oil and metals looking soft.
Gold isn’t necessarily a trend-setter in precious metals but it does have by far the highest volume of trades, so a weak performance from gold usually means a bad week for the sector as a whole. Last week could have been worse, but it was the latest in a series of disappointments with the spot price ending the week at $1,172.30. That’s $17.70 down on the previous week.
The percentage loss for silver was much worse than gold; although it followed the same trajectory for most of the week it closed 57.5 cents down at $16.125, a drop of more than 3.5 percent. Gold, in comparison, lost around 1.5 percent. On the bright side silver turned up slightly on Friday; hopefully that as a stabilization instead of a blip, because there’s really no reason for confidence to fade like this right now.
While platinum has been doing poorly recently it didn’t dip as badly as some others last week, closing $14 down at $1,095. Looking back at its performance for the last year it would be premature to say the price has stabilized, though. Expect to see platinum slowly work its way down to not far above the $1,000 mark before starting to climb again. Industrial demand is good, but supply is keeping up right now so there’s no real upward pressure on the price.
Palladium didn’t have a good time at all last week; while some other prices showed a slight rise until Tuesday, and silver picked up slightly at the week’s end, palladium dropped fairly steeply right through the period. It closed down $25 at $750, a 3.3 percent fall that came close to silver’s losses. Again there’s strong industrial demand and while supply is stable right now there’s some simmering industrial unrest in South Africa that could change that in the near future.
And last of all rhodium, where a very lethargic market finally came to life again last week, only to head down with barely a break. The closing price was just $1,005, a $30 loss over the previous Friday. If rhodium drops below $1,000 that could be a sell signal, and there’s certainly no reason to buy more right now.
So not an impressive week for precious metals, but the underlying market is still a lot more favorable for them than their recent performance makes out. There’s plenty potential for some attractive price rises in the near future, with gold and platinum looking most reliable right now but silver potentially offering bigger gains.
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. 
