Bullion Prices and Business Weekly Update – August 14, 2010

Safe-haven buying lifted U.S. gold prices to a six-week high on Thursday before a stronger dollar pressured the yellow metal to close 10 cents lower on Friday. Gold gained 0.9 percent this week after rising 1.8 percent last week.

Other precious metals prices, however, fell this week — silver by 2.0 percent, platinum by 2.8 percent and palladium by 2.1 percent.

Crude oil and U.S. stocks finished lower Friday, marking four straight declining days. It was the worst week in six for U.S. stocks as the major indexes fell between 3.2 and 5.1 percent. European stocks were mixed on Friday, but also slid lower for the week.

In U.S. precious metals futures prices, gold for December delivery closed to $1,216.60 an ounce, gaining $11.30 this week

"A lot of people are starting to embrace the fact that gold had a substantial move above $1,200, solidifying another possible move to the upside," Adam Klopfenstein, senior market strategist at MF Global’s unit Lind-Waldock, said and was quoted on Reuters. "It is going to be very hard to give us a real rationale why gold should head lower with a lot of slowdown and uncertainty in the United States."

However, Leonard Kaplan, the president of Prospector Asset Management in Evanston, Illinois, has a different take as quoted by Bloomberg on Friday:

"The dollar isn’t doing anything to help gold out today. Gold at these levels is certainly not cheap. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it move lower from here."

September silver added 4.4 cents to finish Friday at $18.109 an ounce. Silver lost 36.3 cents this week.

Platinum for October delivery closed to $1,526.20 an ounce, falling $5.40 on Friday and plummeting $44.60 for the week.

September palladium advanced $6.20 to end at $477.25 an ounce. But palladium declined $10.35 this week.

In London bullion prices, the gold Fix was $1,214.25 an ounce, gaining $6.50, or 0.5 percent, for the week.

"Tugging at worry beads is however, quite fashionable among investors this summer. If there is anything that they appear to hate, well, that would be uncertainty," noted Jon Nadler, senior analyst at Kitco Metals, Inc., early Friday.

"The same unsettled set of background conditions that drove Mr. Bernanke to come up with his latest over-quoted label for what ails the economic world (“UU”) is giving market participants everywhere the shivering fits and has had them react in all sorts of counterintuitive ways following the release of this, or that economic statistic."

In other weekly London precious metal prices, silver fell 24.0 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $18.060 an ounce. Platinum was $1,527.00 an ounce, dropping $44.00, or 2.8 percent. Palladium was $473.00 an ounce, falling $18.00, or 3.7 percent.

To follow are silver, gold, platinum and palladium performance charts, oil news, week-ending stocks, and precious metal article summaries.

London Fix Charts: Silver, Gold, Platinum and Palladium

(August 6 – 13)

The London Fix is one of the most used bullion quotes around the world. The London AM fix for gold and platinum begins at 10:30am GMT (5:30am in New York), and the PM fix begins at 3pm GMT (10am in New York). The London Fix for silver begins each business day at 12pm GMT (7am in New York).

July London Fix Precious Metals Prices

Business News: Oil, Gasoline, and Stocks Prices

Crude oil prices finished slightly lower Friday, "but heavier drops in previous sessions delivered a weekly decline of nearly 7% as the day’s batch of U.S. economic data did little to allay concerns about growth and energy demand," wrote Claudia Assis and Nick Godt of MarketWatch.

"The whole week has been about poor economic data and today’s releases show that the U.S. consumer is still on the mend," Harry Tchilinguirian, commodity strategist at BNP Paribas, said and was quoted on Reuters. "Retail sales disappointed and if consumer confidence in August managed to come in a notch above expectations … it still remains below the June reading."

U.S. crude oil for September delivery lost 35 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $75.39 a barrel. Oil prices plunged $5.31, or 6.6 percent this week.

Prices at the pump fell nine-tenths of a cent between Friday and Saturday. The national average for regular unleaded gasoline is $2.761 a gallon, according to the daily AAA fuel report. The price is 1.5 cents lower than last week, 4.3 cents more than a month back, and 11.4 cents higher than a year ago.

U.S. stocks closed lower Friday. They "closed out their worst week in six with a whimper on Friday, slumping toward the close as economic data gave little reason to reverse a string of sell-offs," wrote Ryan Vlastelica of Reuters.

"Investors are reassessing the global growth and earnings story," Stephen Wood, who helps manage about $140 billion as chief market strategist for Russell Investments in New York, said and was quoted on Bloomberg. "We’re in a stage after stabilization where markets are looking for growth and the Fed confirmed that growth is going to be more difficult to generate."

Friday closing figures for the three major U.S. indexes follow:

• The Dow lost 16.80 points, or 0.16 percent, to 10,303.15.

• The S&P fell 4.36 points, or 0.40 percent, to finish at 1,079.25.

• The NASDAQ lost 16.79 points, or 0.77 percent, to 2,173.48.

For the week, the Dow declined 3.29 percent, the S&P 500 fell 3.78 percent, and the Nasdaq lost 5.02 percent.

And in other world markets on Friday:

• The German DAX lost 24.76 points to 6,110.41.

• The Paris CAC 40 declined 10.16 points to end at 3,610.91.

• The London FTSE 100 gained 9.38 points to 5,275.44.

For the week, the DAX fell 2.38 percent, the CAC 40 retreated 2.83 percent and the FTSE 100 ended down 1.07 percent.

U.S. retail sales rose in July, but under the surface, consumers are still jittery, Conway G. Gittens reports in this Reuters video.

Bullion and Economic Articles

In related bullion, business and United States Mint news, interesting or quick-read articles from the week include:

• 500,000 America the Beautiful Bullion Coins
  The United States Mint anticipates it will produce up to 500,000 America the Beautiful 5 oz silver bullion coins this year.

  An exact date has not been provided for their release, although U.S. Mint spokesman Michael White said on August 11 that they expected to begin producing the 3-inch diameter, .999 fine silver coins in the fall…

• US Mint Fractional Gold Eagles Gain, Proof Sets Near 400K
  United States Mint numismatic coin sales edged lower last week, with the recently released 2010 Proof Set and 2010 Mint Set dropping the most but still registering the highest unit sales. U.S. Mint bullion coins continue to sail…

  2010 Fractional American Gold Eagles popped into the sales charts for the first time in August. As has often been the case when there is action, the less expensive 1/10 oz size jumped the most, gaining 15,000 for the month and reaching 325,000 for the year. The 1/2 oz size rose by 1,000 to 34,000…

• US Inflation Rate at 1.2%
  U.S. consumers prices increased in July, lifted by energy costs, to mark the largest gain since August 2009 and the first monthly increase since March 2010, the government reported Friday. Inflation also rose on a yearly basis, driven by the same higher energy prices. The cost of energy rose for the first time this year and drove the Consumer Price Index 0.3 percent higher in July…