It was an overall good week for precious metals, particularly gold and Silver but Tuesday’s statements from Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen indicated that the Fed might end its bond buyback program in October, potentially hurting the investment metals’ usefulness as hedges against inflation down the road.
Meanwhile, overseas, the Reserve Bank of India is releasing reserve gold to domestic buyers as it replaces it with newer, purer gold from abroad.
Palladium is cruising ever closer to an all-time high and Lead Analyst Raul De Frutos has advice on when to hedge palladium. It’s a good time to be in the precious metals markets.
The week’s biggest mover on the weekly Global Precious Metals MMI® was the price of Chinese silver, which saw a 2.3 percent increase to CNY 4,405 ($709.95) per kilogram. Last week marked the fourth in a row of rising prices for the metal. The price of Indian silver increased by a slight 1.7 percent over the past week to INR 46,611 ($776.75) per kilogram. Finishing the fourth week of rising prices, the price of Japanese silver increased by 1.3 percent, finishing at JPY 696.00 ($6.87) per 10 grams. US silver remained essentially flat from the previous week at $20.91 per ounce.
The price of Indian gold bullion rose 2.2 percent to INR 28,200 ($469.94) per 10 grams after falling 0.4 percent during the previous week. Closing at CNY 266.55 ($42.96) per gram for the week, Chinese gold bullion rose by a slight 1.5 percent. The price of Japanese gold bullion rose 1.0 percent over the past week to JPY 4,351 ($42.92) per gram. This was the fourth week in a row of increasing prices. The price of US gold bullion declined 0.6 percent over the past week, settling at $1,307 per ounce.
At $1,493 per ounce, the price of US platinum bar finished the week 0.5 percent higher. The price of Chinese platinum bar rose 0.3 percent this week, closing out the third week at CNY 319.00 ($51.41) per gram. At JPY 4,919 ($48.53) per gram, the price of Japanese platinum bar did not change since the previous week.
Closing out the third week of rising prices, the price of Chinese palladium bar increased by 1.6 percent, landing at CNY 195.00 ($31.43) per gram. The price of US palladium bar rose 0.6 percent over the past week to $867.00 per ounce. This was the third week in a row of increasing prices. The price of Japanese palladium bar rose 0.3 percent this week, closing out the third week at JPY 2,870 ($28.31) per gram.
The Global Precious Metals MMI® collects and weights 14 global precious metal price points to provide a unique view into precious metal price trends. For more information on the Global Precious Metals MMI®, how it’s calculated or how your company can use the index, please drop us a note at: info (at) agmetalminer (dot) com.