Gold and silver rose on the day the FOMC announced it will expand its QE3 program, but the next day tumbled down. This might suggest some bullion investors used this recent announcement of the FOMC to close their position on bullion. Several U.S related reports were published during the previous week and may have moderately affected forex and commodities markets: U.S PPI declined by 0.8% mainly due to the fall in energy prices; the U.S jobless claims decreased again by 29k to reach 343k; finally, the CPI also fell by 0.3%. These news items may have adversely affected precious metals during the week, although gold and silver remained virtually unchanged during the week except on Wednesday and Thursday. Finally, the Euro/USD increased last week by 1.83%; the Canadian and Aussie dollar also appreciated against the USD. This trend, however, didn’t seem to help rally precious metals prices.
By the end of the week, gold decreased by 0.55%; silver, by 2.34%.
Here is a short recap of the developments in precious metals prices between December 10th and December 14th:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price slipped during last week by 0.55%; moreover, during said week, the average rate reached $1,705.88 /t. oz which is 0.2% higher than the previous week’s average rate of $1,702.44 /t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,695.2 /t. oz.
Silver, even more than gold, declined during last week by 2.34%; moreover, the average rate also slipped by 0.55% to reach $32.92/t oz compared to the previous week’s average $33.1/t oz.
During last week, the average daily percent change of gold reached -0.11%; silver also had an average of 0.45%.
The chart presents thedevelopments of precious metals, as their rates normalized to 100 as of December 7th. Bullion prices sharply declined on Thursday.
The second chart demonstrates the daily percent changes of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold changed from gains to losses almost on a daily basis. During last week, precious metals rates daily percent changes ranged between nearly 2.3% gain and a 4.2% loss.
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