The prices of precious metals shifted during the week with an unclear trend as both gold and silver zigzag from rising to falling almost on a daily basis. Despite this zigzag, the prices of gold and silver ended the week higher than they were a week back. The recent decision of the ECB to keep the EU short term rate unchanged and ECB’s President reassuring words that EU Area might show signs of improvement by the end of 2013 may have contributed to the rally of the Euro and commodities prices. Several reports were published last week and may have also affected forex and commodities markets: China’s trade balance report showed a rise in exports during December; the U.S jobless claims rose by 4k to reach 371k. The report on China may have helped rally commodities prices; the jobless claims may have pulled down the USD. Finally, the Euro/USD rose last week by 2.1%; the Canadian dollar and Aussie dollar also appreciated against the USD. The appreciation of these currencies may have also partly positively affected precious metals prices.
By the end of the week, gold rose by 0.71%; silver, by 1.55%.
Here is a short recap of the developments in precious metals prices between January 7th and January 11th:
Precious Metals Recap:
Gold price rose during last week by 0.71%; alternatively, during said week, the average rate reached $1,660.52 /t. oz which is 0.47% below the previous week’s average rate of $1,668.4 /t. oz. Gold ended the week at $1,660.6 /t. oz.
Silver, even more than gold, increased during the previous week by 1.55%; moreover, the average rate also increased by 0.18% to reach $30.40/t oz compared to last week’s average $30.34/t oz.
During last week, the average daily percent change of gold reached 0.15%; silver had an average daily changed of also 0.35%.
The chart below presents the developments of precious metals, as their prices are normalized to 100 as of January 4th. Bullion prices have had a moderate upward slope during most of the week.
The second chart demonstrates the daily percent changes of precious metals (or in other words the changes around the trend). Silver and gold had an unclear trend during last week as they have shifted from the green to the red on a daily basis. During last week, precious metals rates daily percent changes ranged between nearly 2.2% gain and a 0.7% loss.
For further reading: