Gold and silver resumed their downward trend and declined during last week. The discussions around the U.S multi-year budget in an attempt to avoid the fiscal cliff may have contributed to the sharp changes in the bullion market. Several U.S related reports were published during last week and may have affected forex and commodities markets: U.S GDP for the third quarter was revised up to a growth rate of 3%; the Philly Fed index bounced back in the December Survey; the U.S jobless claims rose by 17k to reach 361k. These news items may have adversely affected precious metals during the week as most of them show progress in the U.S economy. Finally, the Euro/USD edged up last week by 0.19%; the Canadian dollar and Aussie dollar, on the other hand, depreciated against the USD. The fall in these currencies may have also partly contributed to the fall of precious metals prices.
By the end of the week, gold decreased by 2.11%; silver, by 6.66%.
Here is a short recap of the developments in precious metals prices between December 17th and December 21st:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price declined during last week by 2.11%; moreover, during said week, the average rate reached $1,667.62 /t. oz which is 2.24% lower than the previous week’s average rate of $1,705.88 /t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,659.4 /t. oz.
Silver, even more than gold, tumbled down during last week by 6.66%; moreover, the average rate also fell by 6.05% to reach $30.93/t oz compared to the previous week’s average $32.92/t oz.
During the previous week, the average daily percent change of gold reached -0.42%; silver had an average of -1.35%.
The chart below demonstrates the developments of precious metals, as their prices are normalized to 100 as of December 14th. Bullion prices sharply declined mostly during the second part of the week.
The second chart shows the daily percent shifts of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold mostly fell during the week. During the previous week, precious metals rates daily percent changes ranged between nearly 1.8% gain and a 4.6% loss.
For further reading:
- Why Isn’t Gold Pulling Up?
- Gold and Silver Outlook for December
- Choosing Between Gold and Silver
- Will Gold Continue to Dwindle?