The rally of precious metals progress into March, as gold and silver prices increased during last week. Gold prices even reached the highest level since December 2010, while silver prices passed the 35$/ t. oz. – the highest level in years.
Silver prices rose last week by a much higher level than gold prices did. This could be because silver is much cheaper than gold and thus is prone to more volatility, and also since gold and silver are interlinked together and have similar purposes for investors (e.g. hedging against inflation) this could be why silver price is rising by a higher scale than gold price. The growing demand of silver in China is a news item analysts fall back on to understand the recent silver price hike.
Some attribute these recent rises to the current condition of the US economy and mainly the recent US job report; others consider the current gold price (and also silver) to be influenced by the Indian rupee, since India is the largest consumer of gold worldwide.
For more on what to expect ahead for gold price see here.
Let’s see the main changes for these precious metals prices for the week ending in March 4th:
Precious Metals Prices Analysis:
The following table is a summary of last week’s descriptive figures of gold and silver prices:
*This figure is calculated based on the percent change from the price at the beginning of the week compare to the price at the end of the week
Gold prices continue to rise as they have inclined by 1.33% from beginning to end of the week; this week’s average price was 1,424 USD /t. oz – a 1.4% incline compare to last week’s average weekly price of 1,405 USD /t. oz.
Silver prices, even more than gold prices, have inclined by 4.46% from beginning to end of the week, and increased by 5.0% from this week’s average price of 34.55/$/t oz., compare to 32.91$/t oz. in the previous week.
On average, gold price inclined by 0.28% on a daily basis, while silver inclined by 1.43%.
During February gold prices rose by nearly 5.1%, while silver prices increased by 15.5%.
Nonetheless, these figures above only show part of the story, as silver prices rose very precipitately at the beginning and end of the week, thus showing high level of volatility.
Gold prices reacted in a similar manner but rose much more moderately throughout most of the week.
The price of silver and price of gold chart below are normalized to 100 to the price at the beginning of the week –February, 28th.
The graph shows the upward trend these precious metals had at the first of half of the week, followed by a slow down towards the middle and finished off with a big rise at the end of the week.
In the last chart are the daily percent changes of silver and gold prices during last week.
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For further reading (in this site):
- Gold prices bounce back in February – what will be next?
- Is gold a safe heaven investment compare to S&P500
- Gold Prices Outlook for 2011 and Analysis of 2010
- February showed gold and silver bounce back from January’s falls
Previous issues of weekly report:
- Gold & Silver Prices rise & fall, don’t blame the Middle East– weekly recap 21-25 Feb
- Gold & Silver Prices continue rising – weekly recap 7-11 February
- Gold & Silver Prices on the rise – weekly recap Jan 31-4 Feb