Gold price started off the week strong as the concerns over the Debt crisis in Europe rose. This time, Spain and Italy were in the headlines. The week also started after Easter and Good Friday was celebrated over the weekend. As a result the markets were closed on last Friday so that the effect of disappointing U.S non-farm payroll report, which showed a growth of only 120k in employment, was only implemented on Monday. I still think this result isn’t as bad as the market had reacted to it, but perhaps the market estimates this could be a start of a slowdown in job creation. The result was that the financial markets started off the week falling while bullion prices increasing. The U.S jobless claims report also showed a rise in initial claims so that also helped rally precious metals prices. By the end of the week China’s GDP came out and showed a growth of only 8.1% – the lowest growth since 2009. Since China is among the leading country in importing major commodities including gold and silver, this news turned the direction of gold and silver so that they have declined on Friday. The U.S PPI and CPI also came out by Thursday and Friday, respectively but didn’t seem to have much effect on commodities prices. By the end of the week gold price rose by 1.85% while silver price declined by 1.07%.
Here is a short summary of the changes in gold and silver prices between April 9th and April 13th 2012:
Precious Metals Prices Weekly Recap:
Gold price slightly rose during last week by 1.85%; furthermore, during last week the average gold price reached $1,661 /t. oz which is 0.97% above the previous week’s average price of $1,645 /t. oz. Gold price ended the week at $1,660 /t. oz.
Silver price, unlike gold price, moderately fell on a weekly scale by 1.07%; furthermore, this week’s average price reached $31.73/t oz which is 1.38% below the previous week’s average $32.17/t oz.
During the week, the average daily percent change of gold price increased by 0.37%; silver price declined by an average daily rate of 0.19%.
In the following chart are the developments of gold and silver prices, which were normalized to 100 to the end of last week – April 6th. Gold price started off the week strong but on Friday sharply declined.
The second chart shows the daily percent fluctuations of gold and silver (or in other words the shifts around the trend). Gold and silver prices shifted during the week from gains to losses; their daily percent changes ranged between nearly 3% gain and 3.5% loss.
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