Gold prices reached new highs last week as they have inclined very sharply during the first half of the week. But on Thursday and Friday gold price changed direction and declined mainly due to the CME margin hike of 22% on gold trading. This news curbed some of the gains attributed to gold prices. Silver price took a different path and fell very sharply during the first half of the week; by the end of the week it gained back some of its losses, but still ended below its starting point. There are still concerns in the financial markets that might push gold and silver prices up, as the volatility in the markets is high over the debt crisis in Europe and the news of S&P downgraded the credit rating of the US. Finally, in regards to the S&P downgrade, I think that the financial markets reacted too promptly and too sharply to this news; after all, there was no major event in the financial market, only a published opinion by a rating agency (we all already knew that the US economy isn’t doing well…). Therefore, I think, all things being equal, the markets will stabilize by next week and regain some of the losses that were recorded in the stock markets; gold prices will stabilize as well.
Here is a short review of the changes in gold and silver prices during the week of August 8th to August 12th 2011:
Precious Metals Prices weekly summary:
Gold price inclined by 1.72% during the week; furthermore, last week’s average gold price reached $1,746 /t. oz which was 5.96% above the previous week’s average price of $1,648 /t. oz. Gold price finished the week at $1,742 /t. oz.
Silver price on the other hand declined by 0.68% from beginning to end, and this week’s average price was $38.87/t oz or 2.23% below the previous week’s average $39.76/t oz.
During the week, the average daily percent change of gold price rose by 1.1%; silver price also inclined by 0.51%.
In the chart below are the silver and gold prices that were normalized to 100 to the price at the beginning of the week – August 8th. It shows the trend of these precious metals prices.
In the chart above gold price sharply increased during the first half of the week, but by the end of the week it moderately declined. Silver price zigzagged during the week as it sharply fell on Tuesday, and finished the week slightly below its initial price level.
The last chart is of the daily percent changes of silver and gold prices during last week (i.e. the changes around the trend). The chart shows that gold and silver prices inclined very sharply on Monday; silver price declined by nearly 4% the next day, while gold price continue to rise. By the end of the week, gold price moderately decreased, while silver price bounced back.
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