Gold & Silver Market 9-6-2015
Last week was another unsettling one for global markets, and again it affected the precious metal sector. Every spot price fell, although silver was barely affected. Looking at the overall situation it doesn’t look like the slip in prices was any issue with precious metals themselves, so much as a general failure of investor confidence. Pretty much everything lost value – even last week’s sharp recovery in crude oil prices came to a crashing stop. It’s probably not that surprising that metals fell too. The big question is whether they’ll rebound when the markets settle.
Looking at gold, it seemed to be starting the week well; initial moves on Monday were all upwards. Unfortunately that didn’t last, and by Wednesday the price was heading downhill. It ended the week at $1,122, a fall of $11 from the previous Friday. It’s a noticeable fall but not a hugely significant one, and still a much better performance than most of the stock indexes managed – by comparison the FTSE 100 was down 2.4 percent on the week, compared to one percent for gold, and the Dow slid even harder.
Silver, which has been performing more weakly than gold for a while, was a bit of a surprise last week. A dramatic spike on Wednesday almost took it above $15 at one point, and while it settled back down and ended up below its previous close the difference was only a cent and a half. A closing price of $14.58 is actually a good result for a shaky commodity in conditions like these, and it could point to a bit more confidence than we’ve seen recently.
The situation was nowhere near as good in the platinum group. Platinum itself opened the week heading down, but rallied on Wednesday. Thursday saw it fall again, possibly as a reaction to an upward swing in European and Asian equities, but when the stock market recovery faltered and went into reverse platinum kept falling too. The final price was $991, a fall of $25. At 2.5 percent that’s a reasonably heavy hit, and if it continues there will definitely be cause for alarm. Don’t sell off your platinum just yet, but keep a close eye out for a developing downward trend when share prices stabilize.
Palladium also fell hard when markets opened Monday, but seemed to firm up later in the week. A recovery on Wednesday fizzled out but after a small downwards correction the price stayed fairly stable after that. Industrial demand for palladium is still good and tends to overshadow its role as an investment vehicle, so if Chinese manufacturing picks up again some upward movement is likely.
Rhodium, however, continued its sluggish descent last week with an early fall to $770. It’s still $5 above setting a new low, but there’s a real chance of it breaking through that this week. With no new supplies on the horizon and industrial demand still healthy it seems like this has to rebound soon.
In general, then, not a great week for precious metals, but still not as bad as it could easily have been. Silver’s resilience is encouraging too – it pretty much maintained its value, slightly narrowing the gold-silver ratio. Keep an eye on its progress this week.
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. 
