Gold & Silver Market 9-20-2015
Last week turned out to be a much better one for the precious metals market, with prices recovering almost everywhere. The exception was rhodium, which probably isn’t a huge surprise, but all the other headline metals managed to make reasonable gains. That’s not completely unexpected; after the recent chaos across most markets it’s not surprising that prices are rebounding, and some metals – silver, for example – have also been looking stronger over the past couple of weeks. Is this the start of a general turnaround in precious metals? It’s too early to say yet, but it’s definitely a possibility.
Gold is the metal that draws the most interest, and last week we saw it reversing a steady decline from its late August peak. The spot price slid for the early part of the week but turned round Wednesday and began to rise strongly. By Friday afternoon it was trading at $1,139.90, a gain of $31.20 on the week before. That puts it back to where it was two weeks ago and opens up the possibility of a further climb this week. With the Federal Reserve delaying its interest rate rise once more a major cause of uncertainty is off the table for now, so gold has a chance to make some progress.
We’ve been slightly surprised at silver recently; its robust performance through the worst of the China equities crisis hinted at a return of investor confidence. That carried on last week, with a rise of better than 3.5 percent over the period. The final price was $15.18, an increase of 56.5 cents. We still think silver is heavily undervalued, so there could be a lot of potential for anyone who stocks up while it’s still relatively cheap.
Platinum has been having a rough ride, but it also managed to claw back a lot of ground last week. The spot price set off upwards early Monday, and while it did drop back slightly on Friday the closing value was still $980. That’s $10 up, not enough to make up for the previous week’s losses but still a welcome move in the right direction.
The palladium market didn’t see as much of an upset as most other metals, but that’s mainly because the price has been rising slowly since the beginning of the month. It kept rising for most of last week, and despite a small dip Friday the final price was up $11 at $605. A small gain compared to gold and silver, but maybe a more encouraging one because it’s part of a longer-running pattern.
And yes, rhodium was the exception again. The price didn’t go anywhere on Monday, but Tuesday it dropped $15 to $765 and stayed there for the rest of the week. There’s no sign of its relentless decline ending, so no reason to buy just yet.
Looking at the whole sector last week was definitely a big improvement for metals, even if rhodium was disappointing again. The global economy is still shaky and upsets are likely, but hopefully we’ll soon be seeing more weeks like last one and not so many like the previous two.
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. 
