The Friday Metals
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It’s Friday again. Let’s take a look at the metals this week.
First, there’s gold:
Next comes silver:
Then, there’s platinum:
Palladium finishes the list:
Gold dropped slightly on Monday went back up on Tuesday and encountered another drop on Wednesday. On Thursday, gold rose to a 30-day high (but not the highest for the year – yet) with a small drop backwards for the Friday Wall Street close at 4:00.
Silver followed a similar path with a slight drop on Monday, an increase on Tuesday and another drop on Wednesday. Like gold, silver went back up on Thursday, however if you look at the close numbers for today, unlike gold, silver continued its rise.
Whereas gold has been climbing, for the most part, for the last 30 days, platinum has seen more volatile peaks and valleys. Platinum started the week lower than last Friday and continued downward for Tuesday. But, unlike gold and silver, platinum increased on Wednesday and further increased on Thursday. Today’s close numbers follow that upward trend. But, platinum has yet to grow past its 30 day peak value.
Very much like platinum’s performance, palladium started the week down from last Friday. On Tuesday, palladium began its growth at a much steeper rate of ascent. Plus, palladium achieved a new 30 day peak, though it is not the highest for the year (again, yet).
Remember, the charts end on Thursday. Let’s look at today’s close figures along with the 30 day highs and lows:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Sep 3 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,251.30 | $1,184.00 | $1,246.60 | 5.4% |
| Silver | $19.65 | $17.88 | $19.85 | 9.0% |
| Platinum | $1,590.00 | $1,494.00 | $1,551.00 | 6.0% |
| Palladium | $522.00 | $464.00 | $528.00 | 11.1% |
As the table shows, both silver and palladium gained new 30 day highs with their Friday performances.
Now, let’s look at the metals’ performance against the figures for last Friday:
| Aug 27 Last | Sep 3 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,238.10 | $1,246.60 | 0.7% | $8.50 |
| Silver | $19.11 | $19.85 | 3.9% | $0.74 |
| Platinum | $1,531.00 | $1,551.00 | 1.3% | $20.00 |
| Palladium | $503.00 | $528.00 | 5.0% | $25.00 |
Every metal grew this week with palladium having the biggest growth in both percentage and absolute dollars.
As the November elections draw nearer and as the economy meets its challenges, the metals will continue their volatile entertainment.
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New US Mint Products
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Just in case you are not signed up to receive the US Mint’s monthly emails or you haven’t looked at the US Mint’s web site recently, here’s the Mint’s brief review of their latest products and upcoming releases:
Rolls of the James Buchanan $1 Coins are now available. Each roll is priced at $35.95 and contains 25 circulating quality $1 coins from either the United States Mint at Philadelphia or Denver. The obverse (heads side) features the likeness of James Buchanan, while the reverse (tails) design—common to all Presidential $1 Coins—features the iconic Statue of Liberty, the coin’s face value and the inscription UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The inscriptions 2010, E PLURIBUS UNUM and the mint of origin are incused on the coin’s edge.
Ouch…numismatists wish they would go back to a reeded or plain edge and restrict the printing to the obverse or reverse side of the coins. In the proof and uncirculated sets, at best, the edges are difficult to view in their protective covering. In rolls, the edges cannot be seen at all unless encased in clear plastic. The worst, however, happens to the coins in circulation. They lose their edge printing quickly.
Next on the US Mint’s recent releases:
The 2010 United States Mint Silver Proof Sets are now available. This year’s set features 14 coins, including the quarters, dime and half-dollar struck in 90 percent silver. The coins are sealed in protective lenses to showcase and preserve their brilliant and exceptional finish. These sets are priced at $56.95 each.
The proof sets’ value initially lies in the beauty of the mirror-like finish on the coins and the care taken by the Mint in their handling and packaging of the sets. But, have you noticed the value of silver recently? It’s rising.
In those 14 coins, five quarters ($1.25), one dime ($0.10) and one half dollar ($0.50) for a total of $1.85 include 1.34 troy ounces of silver. Silver closed today at $19.36 which makes the silver in the proof set equal to roughly $26 – not quite half the cost of the proof set, but close.
In addition to their recent releases, the Mint’s schedule for the upcoming months shows:
| 09/02/2010 | 2010 First Spouse Series One-Half Ounce Gold Coin – Buchanan’s Liberty |
| 09/02/2010 | Buchanan’s Liberty Bronze Medal 1 5/16″ |
| 09/20/2010 | 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters® Bags and Two-Roll Sets – Grand Canyon (AZ) |
| 09/23/2010 | 2010 United States Mint Presidential $1 Coin & First Spouse Medal Set™ – James Buchanan |
| 09/30/2010 | 2010 James Buchanan $1 Coin Cover |
| 11/15/2010 | 2010 America the Beautiful Quarters® Bags and Two-Roll Sets – Mount Hood (OR) |
| 11/18/2010 | 2010 Abraham Lincoln Presidential $1 Coin Rolls |
The Mint’s busy with their products and releases. Plus, their Fiscal Year ends soon. It will be interesting to see what products they’ve increased and decreased year over year from 2009 to 2010 (Fiscal Years).
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The Friday Metals
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Let’s see, this week’s news included existing home sales down 27%, new home sales down 12% and the economic growth for second quarter down to 1.6%. Earlier it was projected to be 2.4%, but at 1.6%, that’s more than a two percent drop from the first quarter’s 3.7% economy.
With the bad economic news, how did the metals fare this week? Well, they did some climbing.
First, there’s gold:
Next is silver:
Then, there’s platinum:
Last is palladium:
Interesting. For most of the metals, Monday dropped to a low point from Friday, and their values climbed from there. Palladium performed differently in that it grew on Monday to higher than its Friday values.
Both silver and palladium had the steepest growth spurts for the week.
Let’s look at the performance numbers.
First, the 30 day low and high values in comparison to the Friday close figures:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Aug 27 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,240.25 | $1,157.00 | $1,238.10 | 6.7% |
| Silver | $19.11 | $17.47 | $19.11 | 8.6% |
| Platinum | $1,597.00 | $1,494.00 | $1,531.00 | 6.4% |
| Palladium | $514.00 | $464.00 | $503.00 | 9.7% |
Next, let’s take a look at this Friday’s end-of-week numbers in comparison to a week ago:
| Aug 20 Last | Aug 27 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,228.00 | $1,238.10 | 0.8% | $10.10 |
| Silver | $18.02 | $19.11 | 6.0% | $1.09 |
| Platinum | $1,508.00 | $1,531.00 | 1.5% | $23.00 |
| Palladium | $474.00 | $503.00 | 6.1% | $29.00 |
The metals continue to be interesting to follow along with the economic and political news of the day. Some pundits think the metals will continue to climb from here with a few dips along the way but with continued growth being dominant.
Yes, history does prove that tough political and economic times make the metals increase. But, circumstances are never exactly the same as history. Today’s politics and economics are more on a global scale than in past times. Plus, the internet does play a large role in business and politics as well.
Whose crystal ball is correct about the metals’ future performance? Only time will tell whose “guess” is right.
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2003 Silver Proof Set Certificate
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First, do you know how to make a grown numismatist cry? Well, not really literally, but figuratively at least.
You’ve seen the metals markets’ activities over the last few weeks. For some proof sets, the price of the silver coins – dimes, quarters and halves – is higher as bullion rather than as part of a proof set. But, in order to sell the silver coins, they must be removed from the set. Heaven forbid, that means you have to touch proof coins!
For true numismatists, touching proof coins is very difficult – even though they are going to the bullion dealer as silver for melting.
The 2003 Proof Set just happens to be one of those sets that breaks to be worth more as individual coins rather than the set. In 2003, the Mint had a minor editing issue with their certificates. See if you can spot the problem in the certificate below.
First, the front of the certificate can be readily recognized:
Next, opening the certificate shows the message from the Mint and the description of the State Quarters included in the 2003 set:
Turning over the certificate shows more information about the rest of the coins in the set:
Have you spotted the issue yet? The small size of the pictures makes it difficult. Here’s a close-up:
Now, do you see the problem? For those who are new to numismatics, the next picture points out the issues:
In a silver proof set the metal composition of the dime, the quarter (either one or more) and the half will be 90% Silver and 10% Copper. Scrolling back up, the inside of the certificate shows the correct composition for the five quarters in 2003, but the certificate’s back mistakenly shows the clad composition for the dime and half.
The Mint, once they discovered the composition mistake, printed new certificates and sent them to the people to whom they had already mailed their proof sets.
Of course, numismatists with that collector gene made the error certificates a collectible as well. At one time, people paid money to obtain the error certificates. That time has passed. There may be a few collectors for the error certificates, but in general, the errors no longer command a value.
It’s interesting what you find when you go through quite a few proof sets.
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The Friday Metals
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This week, the metals show some hill climbing, some peaks and valleys, but perhaps more interesting is how the charts vary from metal to metal. In short, the metals’ charts do not follow consistent patterns.
First, there’s gold doing some climbing:
Silver is next with a short climb then a drop back:
Then, platinum goes up and down, too:
Palladium ends the list with another climb and a drop:
Generally, the platinum and palladium charts follow the same path just at different numbers. Looking at the charts above, their 30-day performance paths differ more than their usual patterns. The platinum chart includes more dramatic spikes and decreases as compared to palladium
In reviewing last Friday to this Friday, once again gold increased over the last week’s close where the other metals show slight decreases. For silver, platinum and palladium, increases occurred during the week with peaks on Tuesday for silver and platinum and Wednesday for palladium, but they dropped back below their last week’s numbers at the end of the week.
Gold, on the other hand, chose to climb during the week with only a slight drop at Friday’s close from Thursday’s performance.
The 30 day high and lows were:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Aug 20 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,233.50 | $1,157.00 | $1,228.00 | 6.2% |
| Silver | $18.54 | $17.47 | $18.02 | 5.8% |
| Platinum | $1,597.00 | $1,502.00 | $1,508.00 | 5.9% |
| Palladium | $514.00 | $438.00 | $474.00 | 14.8% |
Plus, here are the Friday close number comparisons:
| Aug 13 Last | Aug 20 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,215.40 | $1,228.00 | 1.0% | $12.60 |
| Silver | $18.14 | $18.02 | -0.7% | -$0.12 |
| Platinum | $1,521.00 | $1,508.00 | -0.9% | -$13.00 |
| Palladium | $476.00 | $474.00 | -0.4% | -$2.00 |
Gold continues to be volatile and interesting from week to week. As such, TheStreet.com offers advice about gold in their article: Buying Gold: Avoid These Three Mistakes. They claim, “The gold market is ripe with peer-pressure buying. When gold makes a big double-digit move up or down, panicked retail investors can be tempted to either jump into the market for fear of missing the rally or to sell their positions because they don’t want to be stuck owning ‘cheap’ gold.” In summary, they state, “The three money-losing mistakes many investors make are overpaying for bullion, picking bad stocks, and buying ETFs for the wrong reasons.” Further, they provide advice on how to avoid the main mistakes.
Enjoy the entertainment of following the metals’ individual performances. If you want to invest in any of the metals, perform your due diligence research to make the best choice for your situation.
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The Friday Metals
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Another week of ups and downs for the metals. Let’s look at the graphs.
First, there’s gold:
Next, silver:
Then, there’s the expensive, white metal, platinum:
The last is palladium:
This week, platinum and palladium dropped rather significantly on Monday, further on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. Both metals started upward on Thursday and held their own on Friday’s close. Both platinum and palladium ended the week at a lower number than last week.
Similarly, silver dropped on Monday but not as dramatically. It continued with a slight fall on Tuesday and a dramatic drop on Wednesday. On Thursday, silver began going back upward and held on to the increase at Friday’s close. However, it is still less than last Friday.
Gold performed differently this week. It dropped on Monday went back up on Tuesday then dropped again on Wednesday. Like the other metals, gold increased on Thursday, but unlike the other metals, gold finished higher than last Friday. Look at today’s close, it is within 60 cents of its 30 day high.
Here are the numbers. First, let’s look at the low and high values for the last 30 days’ performance and today’s close:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Aug 13 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,216.00 | $1,157.00 | $1,215.40 | 4.9% |
| Silver | $18.50 | $17.47 | $18.14 | 5.6% |
| Platinum | $1,597.00 | $1,499.00 | $1,521.00 | 6.1% |
| Palladium | $514.00 | $438.00 | $476.00 | 14.8% |
Next, here are the comparison numbers to last Friday’s close:
| Aug 6 Last | Aug 13 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,205.70 | $1,215.40 | 0.8% | $9.70 |
| Silver | $18.46 | $18.14 | -1.7% | -$0.32 |
| Platinum | $1,571.00 | $1,521.00 | -3.2% | -$50.00 |
| Palladium | $489.00 | $476.00 | -2.7% | -$13.00 |
Once again, the pundits have many predictions. Some are positive gold will reach $1300 soon. Others claim gold will drop.
Who really knows? We’ll continue to be entertained with the weekly results.
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The Friday Metals
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It’s Friday after 5:00 pm in the New York (Eastern) time zone and time to look at the metals’ close prices for the week along with their overall performance for the month and compared to last Friday.
First, there’s gold:
Next comes silver:
Now, there’s platinum:
Last, there’s palladium:
What interesting variations from chart to chart. Silver has encountered a very bumpy ride for the last 30 days. Gold’s ups and downs are also frequent if not quite as dramatic. Whereas, platinum and palladium have been mountain climbing with a few dips along the way.
Let’s look at the highs and lows over the last 30 days:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Aug 6 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,216.00 | $1,157.00 | $1,205.70 | 4.9% |
| Silver | $18.50 | $17.47 | $18.46 | 5.6% |
| Platinum | $1,597.00 | $1,499.00 | $1,571.00 | 6.1% |
| Palladium | $514.00 | $432.00 | $489.00 | 16.0% |
Next, take a look at today’s close prices on the New York market compared to last Friday’s:
| Jul 30 Last | Aug 6 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,181.40 | $1,205.70 | 2.1% | $24.30 |
| Silver | $17.97 | $18.46 | 2.7% | $0.49 |
| Platinum | $1,569.00 | $1,571.00 | 0.1% | $2.00 |
| Palladium | $496.00 | $489.00 | -1.4% | -$7.00 |
Look at platinum. At $1597 on Monday, it came close to kissing the $1600 mark – a new 30 day high. Though, it has quite a distance to travel to get back to the high in May of $1752.
Palladium also started off the week on a high note at $514. It’s earlier high in May was at $571.
Using the Friday close, the actual dollars to get back to their highs are $181 for platinum and $81 for palladium. But, in looking at percentages of the total, platinum has roughly 12% and palladium has roughly 17% to get back to the earlier highs.
What about the more volatile gold and silver metals?
Here’s another area where they differ. Silver had a high of $19.64 back in April/May period. But, gold enjoyed its high of $1261 in late June/early July.
Using today’s close prices, gold has roughly $55 or 5% to get back to its recent high. On the other hand, silver has to gain $1.18 or roughly 6% to get back to the $19.64 peak.
The metals and their peaks and valleys continue to be a source of entertainment along with the various pundits’ comments of why the increase or the decrease in the various metals. They also entertain us with their various predictions which tend to be all across the board. Plus, it’s interesting when the metals perform counter to what the pundits expect.
We’ll take another look at the metals next Friday.
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The Friday Metals
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Here we go again…another volatile week.
First, there’s gold:
Next, let’s look at silver:
Then, there’s the rare and expensive platinum:
Last, there’s the also rare but not as expensive palladium:
Before proceeding, note that the charts end on Thursday. That will be important when you see the performance of platinum and palladium today, Friday.
These charts are very interesting. With the exception of silver, all of the metals saw their lowest point on Tuesday. Silver fell a little further on Wednesday before pulling back into a positive direction.
But, perhaps more interesting is looking at the overall trend for the 30 days. Gold and silver show more movement down for most of the time. But, look at platinum and palladium. They were volatile throughout the 30 days, but they’re ending the month on a 30 day high.
Let’s look at the closing numbers for today and the highs and lows for the last 30 days:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Jul 30 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,244.00 | $1,157.00 | $1,181.40 | 7.0% |
| Silver | $18.74 | $17.47 | $17.97 | 6.8% |
| Platinum | $1,560.00 | $1,499.00 | $1,569.00 | 3.9% |
| Palladium | $488.00 | $429.00 | $496.00 | 12.1% |
Both platinum and palladium end the day at a higher number than the last 30 days while gold and silver still lag behind earlier highs.
Next, let’s look at how today’s values compare to a week ago:
| Jul 23 Last | Jul 30 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,189.70 | $1,181.40 | -0.7% | -$8.30 |
| Silver | $18.12 | $17.97 | -0.8% | -$0.15 |
| Platinum | $1,539.00 | $1,569.00 | 1.9% | $30.00 |
| Palladium | $462.00 | $496.00 | 7.4% | $34.00 |
Interesting. Gold and silver closed today at values below last Friday’s numbers, but after the Tuesday dip, platinum and palladium increased over last week.
Some claim that improvements in the automobile industry’s sales help drive the platinum and palladium increases. Due to their high heat tolerance, other industries use these metals as well. And remember, these metals are as difficult to find and mine as gold.
With the economic turmoil and the political upheaval of an election year, the metals will continue to be entertaining to watch.
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The Friday Metals
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This week’s metals’ performance includes some climbing, some falling and some sawteeth. (Note: the charts go through Thursday.)
First, there’s gold:
Silver is next:
Then, there’s platinum:
Last, there’s palladium:
Let’s look at how the week ended and the highs and lows for the last 30 days:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Jul 23 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,261.00 | $1,181.00 | $1,189.70 | 6.3% |
| Silver | $19.11 | $17.55 | $18.12 | 8.2% |
| Platinum | $1,592.00 | $1,499.00 | $1,539.00 | 5.8% |
| Palladium | $492.00 | $429.00 | $462.00 | 12.8% |
Now, let’s compare the end of last week to the end of this week. Are we up or down?
| Jul 16 Last | Jul 23 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,193.00 | $1,189.70 | -0.3% | -$3.30 |
| Silver | $17.86 | $18.12 | 1.5% | $0.26 |
| Platinum | $1,507.00 | $1,539.00 | 2.1% | $32.00 |
| Palladium | $448.00 | $462.00 | 3.1% | $14.00 |
Interesting performance.
Several commentaries end the week about the bank stress tests and the performance of gold:
Markets gain but euro, gold off after stress tests (Financial Post)
US gold ends lower; holds firm after stress tests (Reuters)
Gold ends down, tests fail to spur safe-haven buys (MarketWatch)
Bullion buyers bank on gold coins (MarketWatch)
As for platinum and palladium, they claim that an increase in auto sales have improved their values.
Palladium, platinum rise on improving auto sales (Associated Press)
It’s interesting and entertaining to read Kitco’s news headlines over the day. Without even reading the articles, you can see the rise and fall of the metals as the day progresses.
Next week should prove to be interesting as well. Will the metals climb, go sideways or fall? Who knows. Their performance can be fun or disconcerting to watch. Hang on, the ride could be bumpy.
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The Friday Metals
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This week was a roller coaster ride with the metals. These headlines from MarketWatch tell the story of gold’s rise and fall over the last week:
Friday, July 16, 2010: Gold slides 1.7%, lowest closing level since May
Thursday, July 15, 2010: Gold futures close higher on weak economic data
Wednesday, July 14, 2010: Gold ends lower on a weaker dollar
Tuesday, July 13, 2010: Gold rises to highest level in nearly two weeks
Monday, July 12, 2010: Gold ends lower as dollar strengthens
Friday, July 9, 2010: Gold rises 1.2%; silver sees weekly rally
These headlines would be comical if they didn’t illustrate the economic problems of the country and the world.
Let’s look at the charts. First, there’s gold:
Silver is next:
Then, platinum:
Finally, there’s palladium:
What an up and down week.
Let’s look at the high and low numbers for the last 30 days and today’s last trade in New York:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Jul 16 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,261.00 | $1,186.00 | $1,193.00 | 5.9% |
| Silver | $19.37 | $17.65 | $17.86 | 8.9% |
| Platinum | $1,605.00 | $1,500.00 | $1,507.00 | 6.5% |
| Palladium | $502.00 | $429.00 | $448.00 | 14.5% |
Now, how does today’s close compare to last Friday, in percentages and in dollars:
| Jul 9 Last | Jul 16 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,211.40 | $1,193.00 | -1.5% | -$18.40 |
| Silver | $18.15 | $17.86 | -1.6% | -$0.29 |
| Platinum | $1,530.00 | $1,507.00 | -1.5% | -$23.00 |
| Palladium | $457.00 | $448.00 | -2.0% | -$9.00 |
Look at the charts. Both platinum and palladium started the week down from last Friday but on an upward trend. Then both metals ended the week on a downward note from Thursday.
Similarly, gold and silver also started the week down from last Friday, then started to trend upward. However, those charts only show numbers through Thursday. Looking at today’s last trade numbers in the tables, you’ll see that gold and silver also ended the week down from Thursday.
Buckle your seat belts. Next week’s metals’ performances should prove interesting as well.
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