Gold And Silver Prices Weekly Review –February 4-8 2013

The prices of precious metals continued to seek direction as both gold and silver moved in an unclear trend during the week. Both precious metals slightly declined on a weekly scale. The ECB and MPC left their respective interest rates and monetary policy unchanged. In the press conference that followed the rate announcement, ECB President referred to the strength of the Euro and the expected fall in the inflation and the recovery of EU during 2013. These comments raised the speculations around Euro and resulted in the depreciation of the Euro on Thursday and Friday. The shifts in the forex markets may have also affected the path of bullion rates. By the end of the week, the Euro/USD fell by 2.02%; the Canadian dollar also depreciated by 0.55% against the USD; the Aussie dollar depreciated against the USD by 0.85%. The U.S jobless claims changed direction again and declined by 5k to reach 366k. This news may have also helped rally the USD. By the end of the week, gold slipped by 0.22%; silver, by 1.62%.

Here is a short recap of the changes in precious metals prices between February 4^th and February 8^th:

Precious Metals Recap:

Gold price inched down during the previous week by 0.22%; conversely, during said week, the average rate reached $1,672.68 /t. oz which is 0.47% above last week’s average rate of $1,664.82 /t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,666 /t. oz.

Silver, much like gold, declined during the previous week by 1.62%; conversely, the average rate increased by 0.6% to reach $31.66/t oz compared to last week’s average $31.47/t oz.

During last week, the average daily percent changes of gold reached 0.16%; silver had an average daily changed of 0.52%.

The chart below presents the changes of precious metals, as their prices are normalized to 100 as of February 1^st. Bullion prices have an unclear trend during the previous week.

The second chart presents the daily percent shifts of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold had shifted from gains to losses during last week. Precious metals rates daily percent changes ranged between nearly 0.5% gain and a 1.5% loss.