Gold and silver didn’t do much during last week and edged down on a weekly scale. It seems that many bullion investors might be waiting for next week’s FOMC meeting that could pull up gold and silver if the Fed will introduce additional stimulus plan to jump-start the economy. Several U.S related reports were published during last week and may have moderately affected forex and commodities markets: the manufacturing PMI declined below the 50 point mark, which means the manufacturing sectors in the U.S have contracted during last month; the U.S jobless claims declined again by 25k to reach 370k; finally, the non-farm payroll report was better than many had expected as employment grew by 146k, even though previous months’ employment figures were revised down. These news items may have adversely affected of precious metals during the week, although gold and silver remained virtually unchanged during the last few days of the week. Finally, the Euro/USD declined last week by 0.45%; the Canadian and Aussie dollar, on the other hand, appreciated against the USD. This mixed trend may have contributed little movement of precious metals prices.
By the end of the week, gold decreased by 0.37%; silver, by 0.39%.
Here is a short recap of the shifts in precious metals prices between December 3rd and December 7th:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price declined during last week by 0.37%; moreover, during said week, the average rate reached $1,702.44 /t. oz which is also 1.55% lower than the previous week’s average rate of $1,729.3 /t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,704.5 /t. oz.
Silver, very similar to gold, declined during last week by 0.39%; moreover, the average rate also fell by 2.29% to reach $33.1/t oz compared to the previous week’s average $33.87/t oz.
During last week, the average daily percent change of gold reached -0.07%; silver also had an average of 0.07%.
The chart shows the developments of precious metals, as their rates normalized to 100 as of November 30th. Bullion prices sharply declined Tuesday and then remained nearly unchanged for the rest of the week.
The second chart demonstrates the daily percent shifts of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold shifted from gains to losses almost on a daily basis. During last week, bullion rates daily percent changes ranged between nearly 1.5% gain and a 2.9% loss.
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