Gold and Silver Market Update (2/21/2015) – Golden Eagle
Last week wasn’t a good one for the precious metals market, a fact which didn’t surprise many analysts. With the Eurozone’s latest Greek debt crisis switching attention to bonds and currency speculation and the equities market performing reasonably well demand for bullion as an investment as bound to be low, and that’s how it turned out. Industrial demand still looks healthy right across the sector but that’s not enough to turn things around on its own, so we saw prices falling – often steeply.
Gold lost over $25 through the week, with most of it going on Tuesday. The final price on Friday was $1,202,60, still above the psychologically important $1,200 point. There looked to be some reasonably firm support not far below that level, though, so there’s no reason for it to fall much below it even if the price doesn’t recover this week. Right now we’re not changing our mind about gold being a good medium to long term investment, and if the price does fall below $1,175 it’s probably a good idea to stock up on cheap metal. If you’re looking for gold as a hedge against currency collapse the same goes.
Investors could take comfort from the fact that gold’s fall didn’t amount to much in percentage terms, but the same can’t be said for silver. The $1.10 it lost was close to 7 percent of its starting value, making it the worst week for the metal since December. This is a concern, because for a long time it looked as if confidence in silver had faded badly; the diverging gold-silver ratio is the clearest symptom of that. For now it’s possible this is just fallout from the Euro crisis, but more downward movement is possible. Be ready to take advantage if it happens.
Platinum also slumped badly on Tuesday then continued down the rest of the week, picking up speed again towards the end of the period. It closed at $1,164, $43 down on the previous Friday. In percentage terms that’s a lot better than silver performed but significantly worse than gold.
It looks like palladium is regaining some of the resilience it showed last year – the spot price did fall through the week, closing $12 down at $780, but it’s showing signs of support at around $775 and even managed to rise briefly on Thursday while everything else kept heading down. Industrial demand remains good and there are no supply upsets on the horizon, so there’s a good chance of a recovery this week.
And that brings us to rhodium. This metal hasn’t been showing a lot of movement recently and at first it looked as if that might continue, but on Thursday and Friday the price suddenly dropped sharply. By the time the markets closed it was at $1,130, $15 down, and not showing any signs of a recovery.
So overall not a great week for metal investors, with all the key commodities losing value, but gold and palladium look to be the strongest for the moment. Keep an eye on the currency markets for any signs of the Euro jitters ending, and consider taking advantage of the volatility – it looks like it’ll be with us for a while yet.
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. 
