Gold and Silver Market Update (2/14/2015) – Golden Eagle
Last week was more mixed for precious metals than the one before, with no clear trend across the market; some prices rose well, some dropped and not all of them did either. It’s not easy to pick out any clear message from the week’s activity but overall it left us feeling quite positive, especially for silver.
Looking at gold first, it was far from a great week but nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Following a sharp drop at the beginning of the month the spot price slipped under $1,220 by Wednesday before turning round and slowly rising again. It finally closed at $1,227.90, $5.40 down on the Friday before. Obviously we’d much rather have seen it rise but in the circumstances – the equities markets had a fairly good week – a loss this small is reasonably encouraging. As the apparently endless Greek debt drama heads towards some sort of conclusion we expect a lot more interest in gold from the European markets and that could help the price in the short term.
Silver did much better overall, with steady but unspectacular progress through the week ending in a 47-cent jump on Friday. The spot price ended up at $17.34, 66 cents higher than the week before. This is encouraging, as it closes up the gold-silver ratio again. With its recent weakness and the climbing Dow Jones it wouldn’t have been surprising if silver had slipped again, despite already being undervalued. By this time we’re wary of saying that confidence is growing again but the week’s performance, plus a still-healthy futures market, certainly isn’t giving us a bad feeling about things.
With platinum, unfortunately, the news wasn’t so good. The spot price fell steadily through Wednesday, bottoming out at $1,194, before creeping back up. It didn’t make it all the way though, and by the time the markets closed Friday it was at $1,207 – a loss of $13. The industry seems hesitant about platinum right now, with Glencore PLC announcing Friday that it planned to sell its stake in South Africa’s Lonmin mining business. That could signify more weakness ahead, so while there aren’t any clear sell signals gold might be a safer option for the moment.
Palladium also looked like having a bad week at first, with the spot price all the way down to $765 at one point on Wednesday, but then it recovered quite strongly and by Friday it had reached $792. That’s a $10 gain over the period and it ended on a strong upwards trend. Demand remains good so there’s no reason for it not to do as well this week.
And lastly rhodium. This definitely counted as a frustrating week; for the first two days there was no sign of movement at all, with the price seeming to be stuck at $1,145. Then on Wednesday it abruptly dropped $10 and stayed down there, finally jumping back up Friday to close the week exactly where it started.
So no strong trends visible in either direction but, on balance, there was probably more to feel optimistic about than not. We’re definitely curious to see what’s going to happen 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. 
