During the week of January 31 to February 4th gold and silver prices showed strength for most of the week, after both precious metals declined at the previous week. Let’s see the main changes for these precious metals prices:
The recent rally of gold and silver prices, Bloomberg consider it pertaining to the current turmoil in the Middle East during the beginning of the week and the decline at the end of the week they have attributed to speculation on the reduction in economic recovery in the US.
Despite the recent upward trend during the week for both precious metals (silver and gold), its still early to figure if this is a shift in the downward that was during January.
As the level of uncertainty in the Middle East rises, it might raise energy prices but also other major commodities including gold and silver prices; Nonetheless, as time will progress and the Egyptian situation will become clearer and the effect it has on major commodities’ prices will also become clearer; See here the complete story on the Egyptian riots and its effect on crude oil price.
According to the Canadian press, the gold production levels in Canada have reached a new record high during 2010 of 382,911 ounces of gold compare to 301,773 ounces during 2009.
This goes to show the rise in demand for gold during 2010.
Prices Analysis:
Current gold prices have inclined by 1.09% from beginning to end of the week; this week’s average price was 1,341 USD /t. oz – a 0.5% increase compare to last week’s average weekly price of 1, 334 USD /t. oz.
Silver prices, much like gold prices, have inclined by 3.16% from beginning to end of the week, and increased by 4.8% from this week’s average price of 28.55$/t oz., compare to 27.24$/t oz. in the previous week.
On average, gold price inclined by 0.11% on a daily basis, while silver inclined by 0.81%.
On the other hand note that gold prices fell by nearly 6.2% during the month of January, while silver prices decreased by 9.5%.
These figures show that silver prices were on an upward trend for most of the week, and only at the middle of the week declined sharply by 0.8%.
Gold prices changed in a similar way, but only much more moderately. As a result, current gold prices presented a moderate upward trend.
In the following table I present a summary of last week’s descriptive stats 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
The price of silver and price of gold chart below presents the following: the price of each commodity is normalized to 100 for the price as of 31st of January – the beginning of the week.
The graph clearly shows an upward trend in these precious metals.
In the final graph are the daily percent changes of silver and gold during last week.
For further reading (in this site):
- Gold Prices Outlook for 2011 and Analysis of 2010
- The tightening of Silver & Gold prices – short analysis
- The Gold Rush – is there a bubble in the Gold Market? – A short analysis
Previous issues of weekly report: