Three of the metals are mountain climbing while the fourth flounders in a valley.
Let’s look at the charts.
First, there’s gold:
Next is silver:
Third is platinum:
Fourth is palladium:
What a week for the metals.
After ending the previous week on a down note, gold spent this week climbing and climbing and climbing. There were ups and downs throughout each day, but each day’s closing market increased over the prior day. At the end of the week, Friday’s early morning, pre-New York market neared $1880 briefly before dropping backward slightly. Gold’s average daily increase during the week was over $21, and that included one increase of only $2 over the day before. Gold had an amazing week.
Silver, too, had a very interesting week. It began moving up on the previous Friday, and for most of the week, silver continued an upward trend. Only Tuesday’s silver did close down from the previous day but only by $0.01, in other words, it remained static. On Wednesday and Thursday, silver grew. On Friday, it spiked upward significantly with most of the week’s growth on that one day.
Platinum began its upward climb at the beginning of the previous week. It kept climbing this past week, taking a slight rest between Wednesday and Thursday – only increasing $1.00. Somewhat similar to silver, platinum made its largest jump in value on Friday.
The odd metal out, palladium, had started a slight upward trend in the middle of the previous week. It continued upward at the start of this week with its most significant growth on Wednesday. On Thursday’s market, palladium lost all of the previous day’s gains. Friday’s market stayed down and lost an additional $1.00 at the end of the New York trading.
An interesting week, let’s look at the running 30-day highs and lows for each of the metals:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Aug 19 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,862.00 | $1,584.25 | $1,853.10 | 14.9% |
| Silver | $42.90 | $37.71 | $42.90 | 12.1% |
| Platinum | $1,873.00 | $1,700.00 | $1,873.00 | 9.2% |
| Palladium | $842.00 | $714.00 | $751.00 | 15.2% |
Three of the metals have new highs: gold, silver and platinum. Gold’s new high is an all-time record for the yellow metal. Silver and platinum’s recent high values are still below their overall peaks. Both gold and silver have new low values as their previous lows fell off the chart when the dates rolled forward.
It’s interesting to note that gold’s percentage difference between its high and low values is approaching that of silver and palladium. That’s significant since gold’s value is a larger number.
Though palladium flounders while the other metals climb, all of the metals did increase week over week:
| Aug 12 Last | Aug 19 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,746.30 | $1,853.10 | 6.1% | $106.80 |
| Silver | $39.07 | $42.90 | 9.8% | $3.83 |
| Platinum | $1,792.00 | $1,873.00 | 4.5% | $81.00 |
| Palladium | $743.00 | $751.00 | 1.1% | $8.00 |
This week, silver won with the highest percentage increase, and gold won with the highest dollar increase. How many times have you seen gold increase over $100 in a week? Silver’s increase of almost, not quite, $4.00 is also not a likely occurrence.
The metals grew. Will they maintain their values and continue growing? Or, if the stock market recovers some of its losses, will the metals fall backward again?
With the chaos in the markets and in the world, anything could happen.
If you are investing, read the pundits, but perform your own due diligence research before making your investment decision.