Pressured by a rebounding U.S. dollar, gold futures on Tuesday edged lower and silver futures plunged.
Gold for December delivery dipped $1.50, or 0.1%, to close at $1,116.90 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"Gold will keep reacting to the U.S. data, and today’s housing numbers gave a boost to the dollar and pushed gold down," Miguel Perez-Santalla, a sales and marketing manager at Heraeus Metals New York LLC, said in a telephone interview reported on Bloomberg News. "Gold will remain under pressure because concerns about a September hike remain."
Gold prices ranged from a low of $1,113.20 to a high of $1,120.40. They climbed in the prior session by $5.70 or 0.5%.
Silver for September delivery tumbled 51 cents, or 3.3%, to settle at $14.79 an ounce. Silver prices traded between $14.84 and $15.33. They advanced on Monday by 0.6% after soaring last week by 2.6%.
In rounding out the precious metals futures complex:
-
October platinum settled down $6.60, or 0.7%, to $994.10 an ounce, ranging from $981 to $1,001.50.
- Palladium for September delivery lost $16.80, or 2.7%, to $597 an ounce, trading between $589.20 and $614.40.
London Precious Metals Prices
Earlier fixed London gold and silver prices ended flat to unchanged. In comparing London bullion prices from Monday PM to Tuesday PM:
- Gold declined $7.35, or 0.7%, to $1,111.45 an ounce.
- Silver was unchanged at $15.23 an ounce.
LBMA platinum and palladium prices are displayed on the LBMA’s website with a delay of midnight after the setting of the prices each day.
US Mint Bullion Coin Sales in August
United States Mint bullion sales were unchanged as of 3:20 PM EST. Below is a listing of U.S. Mint bullion products with the number of coins sold during varying periods. Products with an asterisk (*) are no longer available.
| US Mint Bullion Sales (# of coins) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday Sales | Last Week | This Week | July Sales | August Sales | YTD Sales | |
| $50 American Eagle 1 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 7,500 | 2,500 | 144,500 | 14,000 | 357,000 |
| $25 American Eagle 1/2 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 1,000 | 1,000 | 10,000 | 2,000 | 48,000 |
| $10 American Eagle 1/4 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 4,000 | 0 | 28,000 | 6,000 | 104,000 |
| $5 American Eagle 1/10 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 15,000 | 10,000 | 135,000 | 30,000 | 555,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo 1 Oz Gold Coins | 0 | 3,000 | 0 | 32,000 | 4,000 | 132,500 |
| $1 American Eagle 1 Oz Silver Coins | 0 | 1,000,000 | 852,500 | 5,529,000 | 3,032,500 | 30,347,500 |
| 2015 Homestead 5 Oz Silver Coins* | – | 35,000 | ||||
| 2015 Kisatchie 5 Oz Silver Coins* | – | 42,000 | ||||
| 2015 Blue Ridge Parkway 5 Oz Silver Coins* | – | 10,000 | – | 45,000 | ||
Nixon took the US off the gold standard in 1971. Big mistake. Rather than the US dollar being backed by a tangible commodity (gold), it’s now backed by…get this…the Government’s Good Word and Faith. The dollar used to be tied to the price of gold, which holds stronger over a longer period of time because there’s a finite amount of it (Mother Earth isn’t making any more of it). Paper money was created because gold was very inconvenient to carry around to trade with, and people used to scrap off pieces of gold nuggets to pay for items, not quite… Read more »