Precious metals prices didn’t do much again during last week as they have each shifted by less than half a percent on a weekly scale. There were several reports that were published during the week but none of them seem to have a major impact on precious metals. The Philly Fed Index rose from the previous month but was still negative, i.e. the manufacturing conditions haven’t improved; U.S housing starts declined during July, this report tends to be negatively linked with bullion prices; The American core CPI edged up by 0.1% during July, while the U.S PPI excluding food and energy rose by 0.4%; Euro Area GDP contracted by 0.2% during Q2 2012; U.S retail sales rose by 0.8% during July, and finally U.S. jobless claims rose last week by 2k to 366k.
During the week the Euro/USD rose by 0.37%; on the other hand, other “risk currencies” depreciated against the USD such as the Aussie dollar by 1.49%. This mixed trend may have contributed to the little movement of gold and silver.
By the end of the week, gold declined by 0.21% while silver rose by 0.09%.
Here is a short recap of the changes in Bullion between August 13th and August 17th:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price edged down during last week by 0.21%; further, during said time the average rate reached $1,611.98 /t. oz which is 0.35% below the previous week’s average rate of $1,617.6 /t. oz. Gold finished at $1,619.4 /t. oz.
Silver, unlike gold, edged up on a weekly scale by 0.09%; further, the average rate slipped by 0.15% to reach $28.00/t oz compared to the previous week’s average $28.04/t oz.
During last week, the average daily percent change of gold reached -0.04%; silver edged up by an average 0.02%.
As seen below, the chart presents the changes of precious metals, as their rates normalized to 100 to August 10th. Bullion prices edged up during most of the week.
The second chart presents the daily percent changes of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold zigzagged from gains to losses with an unclear trend throughout the week. During last week precious metals daily percent changes ranged between nearly 1.5% gain and 0.8% loss.
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