The financial markets keep their erratic behavior; first it was due to the riots in the Middle East and North Africa including Libya and Yemen (see here for an update on the recent news regarding Libya), and now it’s also due to the tsunami attack on Japan from last Friday; the tsunami and the earthquake that followed caused thousands of lives and an ongoing nuclear threat in Fukushima (see here for more on Japan’s tsunami attack ramifications).
These news items are likely to be among the leading issues causing the erratic behavior in the financial markets and in particular the precious metals market.
During last week, gold and silver prices started off at declines and finished with rises. Gold and silver prices even reached their lowest prices during March so far. In the end these precious metals’ prices fell, on average, compare to the previous week.
The current economic climate probably also contribute for the high gold and silver prices, including the debt crisis in Europe and in the US.
Let’s see the main changes for these precious metals prices for the week ending in March 18th:
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 end of the week
Gold price started off with falls and finished with rises, as it has moderately inclined by 1.04% from beginning to end of the week; however, this week’s average price was 1,402 USD /t. oz – a 1.61% below last week’s average weekly price of 1,425 USD /t. oz.
Silver price has inclined by 0.84% from beginning to end of the week, but decreased by 3.3% from this week’s average price of 34.53/$/t oz., compare to 35.71$/t oz. in the previous week.
On average, gold price declined by 0.08% on a daily basis, while silver declined by 0.47%.
During March gold prices fell by nearly 1.1%, while silver prices increased by 1.8%.
The price of silver and price of gold chart below are normalized to 100 to the price at the beginning of the week – March, 14th.
The graph shows how both these precious metals started off with falls and bounced back with rises 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 & Silver Prices Outlook –17 March
- Gold prices bounce back in February – what will be next?
- Gold Prices Outlook for 2011 and Analysis of 2010
Previous issues of weekly report:
- Gold & Silver Prices zigzagged all week – weekly recap 7-11 March
- Gold & Silver Prices keeps on rising – weekly recap 28/2-4/3
- Gold & Silver Prices rise & fall, don’t blame the Middle East– weekly recap 21-25 Feb