Looking at history, the precious metals go up – generally – when the stock market goes down, especially gold and silver. This week three of the metals went up, but silver went down and gold did not increase significantly.
Perhaps, though, another factor contributed to this week’s gold and silver prices. It seems the Long Beach Coin Show has experienced the metals dropping during the show more times than not. The metals drop during the show so frequently that some dealers call it “the curse.”
Whether the economy, the world trading markets or “the curse,” let’s take a look at this week’s charts.
First, there’s gold, but it appears someone somewhere entered an incorrect data point. If it’s not bad data entry, I wish I had known about the $0.61 rate when it happened – supposedly on the London AM market!
Next is silver:
Third is platinum:
Last is palladium:
Monday was a US holiday, but the world markets still traded.
Gold kept between $1535 and $1540 on Monday, dropped a few dollars on Tuesday and recovered those losses on Wednesday. On Thursday, gold experienced another drop, almost $20 at one point during the day, but closed at just over $5 down from Wednesday. Friday saw gold creep back up over the losses of the week to achieve a small gain.
Silver, on the other hand, had a tough week. Monday’s world market kept silver relatively constant while on Tuesday silver gained. Wednesday and Thursday’s silver prices dropped significantly. And, on Friday, silver lost value again but turned around before the end of the trading day to close up slightly from Thursday’s closing value.
Being a little different, platinum dropped a small amount on Monday’s world market but encountered a sharp spike upward on Tuesday. Platinum lost on Wednesday and Thursday, but not all of its gains for the week. Friday’s market ended with a small upward movement from Thursday’s close.
Somewhat like platinum, yet different, palladium lost ground on Monday’s world market and spiked upward on Tuesday. Palladium’s value dropped on Wednesday and ended Thursday at virtually the same value as Wednesday. Friday, however, palladium regained all losses during the week to end with a sharp tick upward.
There are some consistencies across the charts such as Tuesday’s upward movement, but the metals are reacting differently to the markets easily seen when the charts are compared to each other.
Excluding gold’s $0.61 data entry error, let’s look at the highs and lows for the 30-day performance:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Jun 3 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,542.40 | $1,473.10 | $1,542.40 | 4.5% |
| Silver | $40.29 | $32.50 | $36.29 | 19.3% |
| Platinum | $1,853.00 | $1,749.00 | $1,815.00 | 5.6% |
| Palladium | $783.00 | $706.00 | $783.00 | 9.8% |
None of the metals went below last week’s lows, but all of the metals have new high values. Their new highs are simply because the previous highs fell off the 30-day period. We are still waiting for the metals to regain and surpass their recent year highs which were gold – $1565.70; silver – $48.48; platinum – $1873 and palladium – $855.
In the meantime, lets compare this week’s ending metal values to the previous Friday’s New York close:
| May 27 Last | Jun 3 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,536.50 | $1,542.40 | 0.4% | $5.90 |
| Silver | $37.96 | $36.29 | -4.4% | -$1.67 |
| Platinum | $1,801.00 | $1,815.00 | 0.8% | $14.00 |
| Palladium | $759.00 | $783.00 | 3.2% | $24.00 |
Silver dropped slightly, and gold gained slightly. Platinum and palladium enjoyed two digit dollar growth with palladium winning this week’s contest for the largest dollar and largest percentage increase over the previous week.
With a full five days in the upcoming week, how will the metals fare? It depends on the domestic and global economical and political outlooks. In other words, no one knows with absolute certainty what the metals will do other than provide an exciting ride!