Gold & Silver Market 7-11-2015
We saw losses almost right across the precious metal market last week, with the platinum group looking to take the biggest hit, but it’s a pretty confused picture overall. On the surface it looks as if modest gains in equities could be responsible but it’s all complicated by general market nervousness as the Greek debt crisis dragged towards yet another showdown. Some metals actually held up better than we’d have expected in last week’s market; others fell more sharply. It’s hard to pick any trends out of the movements we saw but there are some reasons for a bit of optimism.
Looking at gold first, for the second week in a row the spot price didn’t really go anywhere at the weekly level. It dropped steeply early in the week then turned around and began to rise again as hopes rose of a Greek deal. By the end of trading on Friday it stood at $1,162.90, a fall of just $5.30 over the week before. That’s just over 0.5 percent, not really enough to matter. That suggests underlying support that was firm enough to insulate it from the general slump, so there’s a good chance of a price rise this week.
Silver followed a very similar pattern to gold, with early losses that were partly gained back after Wednesday as the spot price climbed back up. The final price was $15.62, 6.5 cents down from the previous Friday. It’s actually encouraging to see silver matching gold so closely after such a long period when it underperformed and investor confidence seemed to have gone.
Things didn’t look so good in the platinum market. Again it dropped sharply when trading started on Monday, bottoming out at $1015, but didn’t start climbing again until Thursday. The final price was $1,032, giving a total loss for the week of $51. That’s a 5 percent fall, an order of magnitude more than gold and silver suffered and more like what we’d have expected in the current market. That suggests that whatever propped gold and silver up isn’t doing the same for platinum.
Palladium also had a rocky week. After the initial fall it seemed to be recovering slightly on Wednesday before dropping back again to a new two-year low of $634. On Friday it turned round again and picked up a few dollars but it still closed at just $649, $34 – around 5% – down. Again that’s not far from what could be expected in the circumstances, but speaks of a lack of support right now.
As for rhodium the news was slightly better than it has been recently but only because, after a few weeks of rapidly falling prices, it seems to have gone to sleep again. No overall movement left the spot price basically unchanged at just over $908.
So it’s been a negative week overall, but the same applies to most sectors – even the small gains in US and European equities were balanced by the continued fall in Chinese markets. We’re not drawing any trend conclusions from last week, so let’s just wait and see what this week brings.
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. 
