Mountains and valleys, peaks and V-like trenches — that’s how the metals performed this past week.
Let’s look at the charts.
First, there’s gold:
Next is silver:
Third is platinum:
Fourth is palladium:
For gold, the chart does not tell the whole story. It only reflects the New York NYMEX market (red line) and the London AM (square) and PM (diamond) values. Those markets achieved a new high for gold at almost $100 over the previous week’s high value. But, if you look at the global markets on August 10th, gold got within a few dollars of $1820 per ounce. With the market volatility, gold corrected, somewhat, on Thursday and Friday, but it did not lose all of its gains during the week.
Silver with its up-down-up-down-up week behaved differently. Surprisingly, silver did not react significantly to the market news as we’ve seen it do in the past. Looking at the 9th, while gold was climbing, silver dropped sharply. Could it be people needing cash? Cashing in to buy gold? Market manipulation?
After major losses the previous week, platinum started the week going down slightly. For Tuesday through Friday, though, platinum climbed to gain back its fallen value from the week before.
Not quite like silver, palladium, too, performed differently with its down-up-down-up-up New York daily closing values. Palladium’s efforts did not lose for the week, but they did not gain much ($1) either.
Most of the time, platinum and palladium react similarly to the DOW while silver and gold react just the opposite. This week, gold and platinum grew in spite of the market, where silver and palladium reflected more of the up/down nature of last week’s DOW.
Interesting…
Let’s review the 30-day highs and lows at the end of the week:
| 30 day high | 30 day low | Aug 12 Last | Difference between High and Low |
|
| Gold | $1,795.40 | $1,571.50 | $1,746.30 | 12.5% |
| Silver | $41.73 | $36.75 | $39.07 | 11.9% |
| Platinum | $1,814.00 | $1,700.00 | $1,792.00 | 6.3% |
| Palladium | $842.00 | $714.00 | $743.00 | 15.2% |
Gold set new records for its high value, and its low value increased as the previous one fell off the chart. Silver’s low value increased for the same reason as gold’s, but silver did not reach any new high points. Though platinum grew quite a bit this week, neither of its high and low values changed. On the other hand, pallidium’s high didn’t change, but its market volatility reached a new, recent low point.
Let’s compare week-over-week values:
| Aug 5 Last | Aug 12 Last | Percent Change | Dollar Change |
|
| Gold | $1,663.40 | $1,746.30 | 5.0% | $82.90 |
| Silver | $38.32 | $39.07 | 2.0% | $0.75 |
| Platinum | $1,716.00 | $1,792.00 | 4.4% | $76.00 |
| Palladium | $742.00 | $743.00 | 0.1% | $1.00 |
Even with the market ups and downs, none of the metals decreased in their end-of-week comparison. Gold wins the performance competition for the week in both percentage and dollar increases. Platinum kept pace with a close second-place finish.
Next week’s markets should be just as interesting to watch as the US and the world continues to struggle with the economic challenges.
In the meantime, people claim that silver is undervalued while gold is overvalued. Pundits also predict gold will go higher to $2500 or even $3000.
As with almost anything, there are pros and cons associated with those comments.
If you want to invest in the metals, do your homework and make your own best decision for your circumstances.