Precious metals prices resumed their downward trend as both metals declined during most of last week. The EU Summit did result in any big headlines as Spain did ask for a bailout. There were several reports published last week that may have affected the forex and commodities markets: the Philly Fed index rose again and turned positive fort he fist time since April; housing starts hiked by 15% in September; U.S core CPI edged up by 0.1% during last month. These news items may have contributed to fall of bullion rates as these positive reports lower the odds of the Fed intervening again in the financial markets. The uncertainty around Spain remains even though the Euro slightly rose last week: the Euro/USD rose by 0.56%; further, the Aussie dollar also rose by 0.96%. On the other hand, the Yen and Canadian dollar deprecated against the USD.
By the end of the week, gold fell by 2.03%; silver, by 4.67%.
Here is a short recap of the changes in Bullion between October 15th and October 19th:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price declined during last week by 2.03%; further, during said time the average rate reached $1,741.12 /t. oz which is also 1.48% below the previous week’s average rate of $1,767.22 /t. oz. Gold finished at $1,759 /t. oz.
Silver, even more than gold, declined during last week by 4.67%; further, the average rate decreased by 3.51% to reach $32.78/t oz compared to the previous week’s average $33.97/t oz.
During the previous week, the average daily percent change of gold reached -0.41%; silver had an average of -0.94%.
As seen below, the chart shows the changes of precious metals, as their rates normalized to 100 as of October 12th. Bullion prices have had a downward trend throughout the week.
The second chart presents the daily percent changes of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold declined on Monday, Thursday and Friday and edged up in the rest of the week. During last week, precious metals daily percent changes ranged between nearly 0.8% gain and a 2.8% loss.