The prices of precious metals zigzagged during the week only the finish the week on a positive note. Both metals rose on a weekly scale. The FOMC left its policy unchanged, but it this news seems to have been crowded out by the GDP report in which the U.S GDP for Q4 contracted by 0.1%. This news may have contributed to the rally of precious metals. Nonetheless, the prices of gold and silver fell the next day on Thursday perhaps as a long squeeze before the month ended. On the first day of the month gold and silver rallied: the manufacturing PMI in the U.S rallied to 53.3% and the non-farm payroll increased by 157k – a lower pace than many had expected. The rate of unemployment remained at 7.9%. This news may have pulled up bullion even though these changes in employment and bullion rates tend to be negatively correlated.
Finally, the Euro/USD rose again last week by 1.31%; the Canadian dollar appreciated by 0.92% against the USD; the Aussie dollar and Yen depreciated against the USD. The appreciation of two former currencies may have pulled up precious metals prices.
By the end of the week, gold increased by 0.8%; silver, by 2.49%.
Here is a short recap of the developments in precious metals prices between January 28th and February 1st:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price rose during last week by 0.8%; conversely, during said week, the average rate reached $1,664.82 /t. oz which is 0.83% below the previous week’s average rate of $1,678.68 /t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,669 /t. oz.
Silver, even more than gold, spiked during the previous week by 2.49%; conversely, the average rate decreased by 1.26% to reach $31.47/t oz compared to last week’s average $31.88/t oz.
During last week, the average daily percent changes of gold reached 0.16%; silver had an average daily changed of 0.52%.
The chart below shows the developments of precious metals, as their prices are normalized to 100 as of January 25th. Bullion prices have an unclear trend during the week.
The second chart shows the daily percent changes of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold had risen during most of the previous week. During last week, precious metals rates daily percent changes ranged between nearly 3.2% gain and a 2.5% loss.
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