As for excitement, the metals do not disappoint! This week, gold and silver achieved their high closing values on Monday with platinum and palladium following with their high close on Tuesday.
Let’s look.
First, there’s gold:
Next is silver:
Third is platinum:
Last is palladium:
The metals always prove to be interesting as they go up and down with the happenings in the world.
This week, gold and silver followed a similar performance track. On Monday, they each had significant increases. Gold even achieved a new, albeit recent, high point. With losses by the New York close on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, silver lost all of its Monday gains. Likewise, gold lost significantly over those days but held on to a few dollars of the Monday gain. Friday’s close saw both gold and silver regain 81% and 66%, respectively, of their week’s losses.
Both platinum and palladium also experienced gains and losses throughout the week, but their performances differed slightly from gold and silver and even slightly from each other.
Platinum’s market increased over both Monday and Tuesday before losing all its gains plus more on Wednesday. Thursday’s platinum market decreased further before gaining again on Friday. Platinum ended the week gaining 51% of its losses over the week.
Both similar and different, palladium increased its values by the New York close on both Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, palladium lost those gains and more. But, palladium started its gain, though small, on Thursday and continued on Friday. By Friday’s New York close, palladium regained 45% of its losses encountered earlier in the week.
Let’s review how the metals have fared over the last 30 days:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Nov 11 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,795.60 | $1,620.00 | $1,788.50 | 9.8% |
| Silver | $35.42 | $30.58 | $34.66 | 13.7% |
| Platinum | $1,661.00 | $1,490.00 | $1,639.00 | 10.3% |
| Palladium | $673.00 | $584.00 | $656.00 | 13.2% |
Gold, platinum and palladium recorded new, recent high values during this week. On the other hand, all four metals have new low points as their earlier lows fell off the rolling chart.
Let’s look at the week-over-week comparison:
| Nov 4 Last | Nov 11 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,754.00 | $1,788.50 | 2.0% | $34.50 |
| Silver | $34.13 | $34.66 | 1.6% | $0.53 |
| Platinum | $1,633.00 | $1,639.00 | 0.4% | $6.00 |
| Palladium | $654.00 | $656.00 | 0.3% | $2.00 |
Even with the losses against Monday’s significant gains, the end of the week increases in all of the metals kept them above the previous week’s ending values. Gold wins this week with both the largest percentage and the largest dollar gains.
Let’s review the day by day closing New York market values:
| mon | tues | wed | thu | fri | |
| gold | $1,795.60 | $1,785.10 | $1,768.60 | $1,758.00 | $1,788.50 |
| platinum | $1,656.00 | $1,657.00 | $1,626.00 | $1,620.00 | $1,639.00 |
| silver | $34.98 | $34.90 | $34.04 | $34.03 | $34.66 |
| palladium | $660.00 | $668.00 | $646.00 | $647.00 | $656.00 |
Platinum continues its struggle against the gold increases. With this week’s performance of the metals, platinum returns to almost $150 behind gold. Just a short year ago, on November 12, 2010, platinum closed at almost $300 over gold. That’s a wide swing – almost $450 in a year’s time.
What will next week bring to the metals? Some predict silver will take off soon. Others are more hesitant with their predictions.
In reality, many factors impact what will happen to the metals. The turmoil amid the Euro nations, the strife in the Arab world, the natural disasters in other countries, not to mention the political and economic upheaval domestically along with the stock market – all of these help drive the metals’ prices.
Stay tuned for next week’s up and down ride of the metals.