The rates of precious metals changed course and tumbled down during last week mainly on Thursday and Friday. The speculations around the decision of big investors including Soros and Bacon to cut their exposure to gold may have contributed to the decline of gold and silver prices last week. In Europe, the Euro currency declined last week after the EU GDP contracted by a higher than expected rate. The developments in the forex markets may have had a modest effect on precious metals. By the end of the week, the Euro/USD inched down by 0.04%; the Aussie dollar also depreciated by 0.14% against the USD; the Canadian dollar depreciated against the USD by 0.44%. The U.S jobless claims declined again by 27k to reach 341k. U.S retail sales rose by 0.1% in January. This news may have also helped pull up the USD. By the end of the week, gold fell by 3.4%; silver, by 5.06%.
Here is a short recap of the developments in precious metals prices between February 11th and February 15th:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price tumbled down during the previous week by 3.4%; moreover, during said week, the average rate reached $1,637.24 /t. oz which was 2.12% above last week’s average rate of $1,672.68 /t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,609.5 /t. oz.
Silver, even more than gold, plunged during last week by 5.06%; further, the average rate decreased by 3.35% to reach $30.6/t oz compared to last week’s average $31.66/t oz.
During the previous week, the average daily percent changes of gold reached -0.69%; silver had an average daily changed of -1.03%.
The chart below shows the shifts of precious metals, as their prices are normalized to 100 as of February 8th. Bullion prices have a sharp downward trend during last week.
The second chart shows the daily percent changes of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold had a downward trend during last week. Precious metals rates daily percent changes ranged between nearly 0.35% gain and a 1.7% loss.
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