Gold and silver continued their descent during the previous week. The aftermath from the FOMC’s tapering decision one week earlier kept dragging down bullion prices. Moreover, the U.S dollar slightly appreciated against some leading currencies including Euro and Japanese yen. This trend may have also contributed to the fall of precious metals prices. In the U.S several reports were published and showed mixed signal regarding the progress in the U.S economy: U.S new home sales declined by 3.3% during February; pending home sales also declined by 0.8% to 93.9; the last estimate of the U.S GDP for Q4 2013 was released and was revised slightly up from 2.4% to 2.6%; finally, jobless clams slightly fell by 10k to reach 311k. China manufacturing PMI by HSBC dropped to 48.1 in March – meaning the manufacturing sectors are contracting. This news may have also adversely affected the prices of commodities. By the end of the week, gold price plunged by 3.14% and silver by 2.47%.
Here is a short overview of the recent developments in bullion prices between March 24th and March 28th:
Precious Metals Overview:
The price of gold fell by 3.14% last week; further, during last week, the average price reached $1,302.96/t. oz which was 3.34% lower than last week’s average rate of $1,347.94/t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,294 /t. oz.
The price of silver, much like gold, fell by 2.47%; further, the average weekly rate was $20.72/t oz, which was 4.21% below last week’s rate $20.72/t oz.
During the previous week, the average daily percent shifts of gold were -0.63%; silver had an average daily change of -0.497%.
The chart below shows the changes in precious metals prices, in which they are normalized to 100 as of March 21st. Gold and silver tumbled down throughout most of 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 fell mostly on Monday. The daily percent changes ranged between -1.9% and 0.5%.
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