The Friday Metals 03112011

The past week included volatile metals’ prices and world crises. Two of the metals achieved new highs and two sank to new, short term lows. Let’s look at the charts.

First, there’s gold:

30 Day Gold Performance 03-11-2011

Next is silver:

30 Day Silver Performance 03-11-2011

Third is platinum:

30 Day Platinum Performance 03-11-2011

Last is palladium:

30 Day Palladium Performance 03-11-2011

On the New York close, gold began the week down from the previous Friday, closed slightly down further on Tuesday and climbed back upward on Wednesday. Thursday saw a sharp downward fall with Friday picking back up part of the loss. But, take a look at Monday’s volatility, gold achieved a new high on the London market.

On a different trend, silver began the week with a slight incline upward through Wednesday and incurred a fall back on Thursday. Friday saw a pull upward again, but not quite to the new high point it achieved on the London market on Monday.

Painfully, platinum continued its sharp fall downward through Thursday, its low point for the week and a new 30 day low point as well. On Friday, platinum began a small upward climb.

Similar, yet different, palladium started the week down from the previous Friday, but on Tuesday it experienced a small increase in value. From Tuesday through the rest of the week, palladium went straight downhill and gained a new 30 day low point during the week.

Let’s look at the 30 day lows and highs for the four metals:

  30 day high 30 day low Mar 11 Last Difference between
High and Low
Gold $1,437.50 $1,353.25 $1,419.60 5.9%
Silver $36.60 $29.80 $35.90 18.6%
Platinum $1,863.00 $1,763.00 $1,777.00 5.4%
Palladium $859.00 $754.00 $757.00 12.2%

 

Silver and palladium continue to have the largest percentage difference between their high and low points during the 30 days indicating those two metals have the most volatile swings in their values over the rolling 30 day period.

Now, let’s look at how this Friday’s end of week values compare to the previous Friday’s values:

  Mar 4 Last Mar 11 Last Percent Change Dollar
Change
Gold $1,432.80 $1,419.60 -0.9% -$13.20
Silver $35.67 $35.90 0.6% $0.23
Platinum $1,841.00 $1,777.00 -3.5% -$64.00
Palladium $810.00 $757.00 -6.5% -$53.00

 

That’s interesting. All of the metals closed below last Friday – except for silver. Some keep predicting there will be a pull back, and maybe there was during the week. But, even though silver’s values swung more than a $1.00 (in some cases, closer to $2.00) during the day, the metal continued an upward trend.

Though gold gained a new high, it finished the week down from the previous Friday. But looking at its chart, gold’s trend holds,  more or less, level over the last couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, platinum and palladium have not fared well. They lost significant value in the last few weeks. But, if you look at the longer term, both of these metals still show current values above their values at six months, one year, and even five years ago. 

With the domestic issues and the world crises, what will the metals do next week? Ups and downs are a certainty, but how far up and how far down remain to be seen.