Precious metals dropped again Tuesday with gold logging an about four-month low and silver closing at its worst level since mid-July.
Gold for February delivery declined $12.80, or 1%, to settle at $1,264.90 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The settlement is the lowest since Aug. 8 when prices ended at $1,262.60 an ounce.
"Overall physical demand is down to multi-year lows, so even outside the investment community, there is no real push into gold from the likes of China and India," Reuters quoted Carsten Menke, analyst at Julius Baer. "Without this demand spark, gold just remains very, very sensitive to the U.S. dollar."
Gold futures traded from a low of $1,263.20 to a high of $1,279.80. They slipped 0.4% in starting the week on Monday.
Silver for March delivery lost 30.5 cents, or 1.9%, to finish at $16.068 an ounce. The settlement is the weakest since July 14 when prices closed at $15.933 an ounce. Silver futures ranged from $16.04 to $16.38. They dipped about 0.1% on Monday.
In other precious metals prices:
-
January platinum fell $8.50, or 0.9%, to $917.50 an ounce, trading between $914.70 and $931.10.
- Palladium for March delivery declined $14.60, or 1.5%, to $977.15 an ounce, ranging from $973.60 to $995.
London Precious Metals Prices
In comparing earlier fixed London gold and silver prices from Monday PM to Tuesday PM:
- Gold fell $7.15, or 0.6%, to 1,266.30 an ounce.
- Silver declined 4.5 cents, or 0.3%, to $16.285 an ounce.
LBMA platinum and palladium prices are available on the LBMA’s website with a delay of midnight.
US Mint Bullion Sales in 2017
United States Mint bullion sales were unchanged as of 3:48 p.m. Below is a sales breakdown of U.S. bullion products with columns listing the number of coins sold during varying periods. Products with an asterisk (*) are no longer available.
| US Mint Bullion Sales (# of coins) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | Last Week | This Week | November | December | YTD | |
| $100 American Eagle 1 Oz Platinum Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20,000 |
| $25 American Eagle 1 Oz Palladium Coin* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15,000 |
| $50 American Eagle 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 2,500 | 0 | 9,500 | 0 | 190,500 |
| $25 American Eagle 1/2 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 2,000 | 0 | 2,000 | 0 | 34,000 |
| $10 American Eagle 1/4 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 2,000 | 0 | 2,000 | 0 | 60,000 |
| $5 American Eagle 1/10 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 380,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 1,000 | 1,000 | 2,000 | 1,000 | 86,500 |
| $1 American Eagle 1 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 90,000 | 110,000 | 385,000 | 110,000 | 17,433,500 |
| 2017 Effigy Mounds 5 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 35,000 |
| 2017 Frederick Douglass 5 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20,000 |
| 2017 Ozark Riverways 5 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20,000 |
| 2017 Ellis Island 5 Oz Silver Coin* | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40,000 |
| 2017 George Rogers Clark 5 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32,400 | 0 | 32,400 |
