Gold and silver market continues to slowly recover as their prices rose again during last week. The economic slowdown in the U.S economy may have contributed to the rally of precious metals: retail sales declined by 0.4% during January; industrial production decreased by 0.3% in January. Finally, jobless clams rose by 8k to reach 339k. The new Chair of the FOMC – Janet Yellen testified in the House of Representatives and Senate. She pointed out that if the U.S economy slows down, it could lead the FOMC to implement additional monetary measures, but for now it seems that the FOMC will keep slowly reducing its asset purchase program. In the forex market, the Euro, Aussie dollar and Japanese yen rallied against the USD. This may have also helped pull up commodities prices. By the end of the week, gold price increased by 4.4% and silver by 7.45%.
Here is a short overview of the latest developments in precious metals prices between February 10th and February 14th:
Precious Metals Overview:
The price of gold increased by 4.4% last week; moreover, during last week, the average price reached $1,295.76/t. oz which was 3.02% higher than last week’s average rate of $1,257.74/t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,318.8 /t. oz.
The price of silver, even more than gold, increased by 7.45%; further, the average weekly rate was $20.48/t oz, which was 4% above last week’s rate $19.70/t oz.
During last week, the average daily percent changes of gold were 0.866%; silver had an average daily change of 1.463%.
The chart below shows the changes in precious metals prices, in which they are normalized to 100 as of February 7th. Gold and silver have rallied during last week.
The second chart shows the daily percent changes of precious metals prices (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold rose mainly on Friday. The daily percent changes ranged between 0.2% and 5%.