Bullion – The Friday Metals 11-04-2011

Another volatile week for the metals! The week ended with three down slightly from the previous week’s ending values, and one ended up. Let’s take a look.

First, there’s gold:

Bullion Gold - 30 Day Performance Ending 11-04-2011

Next, there’s silver:

Bullion Silver - 30 Day Performance Ending 11-04-2011

Third is platinum:

Bullion Platinum - 30 Day Performance Ending 11-04-2011

Fourth and last is palladium:

Bullion Palladium - 30 Day Performance Ending 11-04-2011

After the previous week’s climb, climb, climb, this week began with all four metals dropping significantly.

Gold, however, was the odd metal this week. After dropping on Monday, it was the only one of the four metals to move upward at Tuesday’s New York market close. It kept its upward trajectory until Friday. Gold closed on Friday down from Thursday’s close but up when looking at week-over-week values.

Unlike gold, silver continued its downward movement on Tuesday with another significant drop, though not quite as much as Monday’s fall. On Wednesday, silver regained slightly more than Tuesday’s drop by the New York close. Thursday’s market saw another slight increase for silver, but Friday’s market closed with silver headed back down.

Somewhat similar to silver, platinum continued downward for Tuesday’s New York market close. Wednesday saw platinum increase slightly with a larger increase by Thursday’s market close. Friday closed with platinum holding steady in comparison to Thursday’s close.

This week, palladium followed silver’s example for the most part. Tuesday’s market had a relatively significant fall but not as much as Monday’s downward direction. On Wednesday, palladium regained all of Tuesday’s losses, and on Thursday it closed up by a small increase. On Friday palladium headed back down but only by a small amount – not quite like silver.

Let’s review the latest highs and lows during the 30-day performance period.

  30 day high 30 day low Nov 4 Last Difference between
High and Low
Gold $1,764.40 $1,600.00 $1,754.00 9.3%
Silver $35.42 $28.69 $34.13 19.0%
Platinum $1,647.00 $1,442.00 $1,633.00 12.4%
Palladium $667.00 $549.00 $654.00 17.7%

 

Even though the metals fell this week, none of them went below their most recent low values. On the other hand, gold may have ended the week on a down note, it still reached a new 30-day high value. This high was also gold’s closing value on the New York market on Thursday.

Now, let’s look at the week-over-week comparison:

  Oct 28 Last Nov 4 Last Percent Change Dollar
Change
Gold $1,743.40 $1,754.00 0.6% $10.60
Silver $35.29 $34.13 -3.3% -$1.16
Platinum $1,647.00 $1,633.00 -0.9% -$14.00
Palladium $665.00 $654.00 -1.7% -$11.00

 

Gold wins the week-over-week’s performance race. It was the only metal to finish the week with a positive change over the previous week’s closing values.

With gold ending positive and platinum ending negative for the week, the difference between gold and platinum increased again. At week’s end, gold exceeded platinum by $121.

For a day-to-day comparison, let’s review the New York closing values for every day of the week:

  mon tues wed thu fri
gold $1,715.10 $1,719.90 $1,737.40 $1,764.40 $1,754.00
platinum $1,595.00 $1,588.00 $1,601.00 $1,633.00 $1,633.00
           
silver $34.24 $33.45 $34.27 $34.48 $34.13
palladium $643.00 $634.00 $650.00 $656.00 $654.00

 

Looking at several years of history, the metals continue to perform out of character. For example, during the week shown above, the stock market dipped quite a bit. In the past, when the stock market goes down significantly, the metals – at least gold and silver – head upward.

At least for part of the week, when the stock market went down, so did the metals.

Just odd.

With the European nations discussing debt issues, with political turmoil around the world and with our own diverse problems – political and economical, the metals will continue to be volatile.

Perform your due diligence, keep watching and make your own investment choices for this metals market.