Gold and silver prices didn’t do much during last week as they have shifted from rise to fall on a daily basis. Their sharpest drop came on Tuesday when gold and silver prices declined by 1.22% and 3.5% respectively. It was reported last week that China and Europe’s manufacturing PMI will continue to contract. This news may be among the factors to drag down gold and silver prices during the week. China is among the leading countries in importing gold and silver. The protests in India regarding the new tax on gold didn’t help the yellow metal’s performance as well.
On the other hand there were several U.S reports regarding the housing market that weren’t too positive including the slight decline in new home sales during February, the decrease in existing home sales, and the 1.1% drop in housing starts during last month. All these report may have weakened the US dollar and consequently may have helped rally precious metals prices during the week.
By the end of the week, gold price edged up by 0.4% while silver price slipped by 1.02% and thus keeping the prices of precious metals very close to their level from a week back.
Here is a short summary of the changes in gold and silver prices between March 19th and March 23rd 2012:
Precious Metals Prices Weekly Recap:
Gold price slightly rose during last week by 0.4%; on the other hand, during last week the average gold price reached $1,653 /t. oz which is 0.99% below the previous week’s average price of $1,670 /t. oz. Gold price ended the week at $1,662 /t. oz.
Silver price, unlike gold, moderately declined on a weekly scale by 1.02%; furthermore, this week’s average price reached $32.13/t oz which is 2.35% below the previous week’s average $32.90/t oz.
During the week, the average daily percent change of gold price slightly increased by 0.08%; silver price decreased by an average daily rate of 0.17%.
In the following chart are the developments of gold and silver prices, which were normalized to 100 to the end of last week – March 16th. Gold edged up by the end of the week while silver price slightly fell on a weekly scale.
The second chart presents the daily percent fluctuations of gold and silver (or in other words the shifts around the trend). Gold and silver prices zigzagged during the week from gains to losses every day; precious metals were traded down during Tuesday and Thursday and both metals traded up on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; their daily percent changes ranged between 3% gain to a 3.4% loss.
