Gold futures finished slightly lower Monday, extending losses to three straight sessions. Aside from palladium which jumped 1.8%, precious metals logged very narrow changes.
Gold for June delivery settled down $2.30, or less than 0.2%, to $1,434.30 an ounce on the Comex in New York. Prices ranged from an intraday low of $1,424.70 to a high of $1,448.30 — a swing of $23.60. Last week, gold prices fell $27.60, or 1.9%.
Gold’s decline on Monday was mostly attributed to a stronger U.S. dollar and a lack of support from gold-backed exchange traded funds.
"Without an end to this persistent ETF liquidation, the upside for gold in our opinion is severely constrained," Marc Ground, a commodity strategist at Standard Bank Plc in Johannesburg, said in a report cited on Bloomberg. "Clearly, the futures market is not convinced that gold can sustain significant upside."
Reversing a two-session slide, silver for July delivery inched higher by 3.8 cents, or less than 0.2%, to settle at $23.696 an ounce. Silver marked a session low of $23.47 and a high of $23.84. Silver prices shed 35.6 cents, or 1.5%, last week.
PGM’s split in direction Monday with platinum changed modestly and palladium soaring.
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Falling for a second consecutive session. July platinum slid $1.50, or 0.1%, to close at $1,484.50 an ounce. It traded between $1,477.00 and $1,497.10.
- Advancing for the third time in four sessions, palladium for June delivery surged $13.00 to finish at $718.70 an ounce. Prices ranged $700.00 to $719.10.
PGM’s also split last week. Platinum declined 1.0% while palladium gained 1.8%.
London Fix Precious Metals
Silver jumped nicely Monday while other London precious metals fixings notched relatively modest changes. In contrasting the Friday PM to Monday PM London Fix prices:
- Gold edged up $4.25, or 0.3%, to $1,430.75 an ounce,
- Silver surged 29.0 cents, or 1.2%, to $23.66 an ounce,
- Platinum dipped $5.00, or 0.3%, to $1,485.00 an ounce, and
- Palladium added $3.00, or 0.4%, to $705.00 an ounce
Last week in London the precious metals with losses and their totals were gold at 2.9%, silver at 3.6% and platinum at 0.7%. Palladium climbed 1.2% last week.
US Bullion Coin Sales in May
Published sales levels for United States Mint bullion products were unchanged. The U.S. Mint on Monday began selling the first of the 2013 America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Bullion Coins so expect bullion coin sales on Tuesday to rise.
The following are daily, May and year-to-date bullion coin totals as published by the United States Mint.
| American Eagle and Buffalo Bullion Coin Sales | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday Sales | Last Week | Weekly Sales | May Sales | YTD Sales | |
| $50 American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins | 0 | 5,000 | 0 | 15,000 | 449,000 |
| $25 American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40,000 |
| $10 American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 72,000 |
| $5 American Eagle Gold Bullion Coins* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 300,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo Gold Bullion Coins | 0 | 1,000 | 0 | 2,500 | 134,500 |
| American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins | 0 | 900,000 | 0 | 900,000 | 19,210,000 |
*The U.S. Mint has temporarily suspended sales of its smallest American Gold Eagle until inventories are replenished. The Mint ran out of them on April 22.
