Precious metals split on Friday but they all gained on the week. In the longer haul, gold sat alone among metals with a loss in September, extending its monthly losing streak to six in a row.
On Friday, gold for December delivery rose $3.40, or 0.2%, to settle at $1,672 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"We’re really facing high-inflation environment, which is ultimately the reason why the Fed has to be so aggressive. These macro forces really sap investment appetite from gold and so investors aren’t looking at the metal as proper safe haven hedge," Reuters quoted Daniel Ghali, commodity strategist at TD Securities.
Gold prices advanced 1% this week after losses of 1.7% last week and 2.6% in the week ending Sept. 16. For September, they gave back 3.1%. They have now fallen a combined $282, or 14.4%, through their six consecutive monthly declines.
On Monday at $1,633.40 an ounce, gold registered its lowest settlement since April 1, 2020.
The yellow metal marks losses of 7.5% for the quarter and 8.6% for the year to date.
In looking ahead to next week, Kitco News offers the following forecasts via their Wall Street & Main Street surveys:
"This week, a total of 16 market professionals took part in Kitco News’ Wall Street survey. Ten analysts, or 63%, said they were bullish on gold next week. At the same time, bearish and neutral views for next week were tied at three votes a piece or 19%.
On the retail side,731 respondents took part in online polls. A total of 389 voters, or 53%, called for gold to rise. Another 225, or 31%, predicted gold would fall. The remaining 117 voters, or 16%, called for a sideways market."
Elsewhere, silver for December delivery tacked on 32.7 cents, or 1.8%, to settle at $19.039 an ounce. Silver prices climbed 0.7% this week after falling 2.4% last week.
They rallied 6.5% in September. Before then, the precious metal registered five straight monthly declines for a combined loss of $7.25, or 28.9%.
Silver prices are 18.5% lower on the year, having declined 6.5% in the third quarter.
In PGM futures on Friday, for the week, and for the month:
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Down for the seventh time in eight sessions, January platinum lost $1.10, or 0.1%, to end at $859.10 an ounce, but logged gains of 0.05% for the week and 3.9% in September.
- Palladium for December delivery declined $28.90, or 1.3%, to end at $2,182.20 an ounce, but scored increases of 5.4% for the week and 5% for the month.
In the third quarter, platinum fell 4% while palladium soared 13.9%. Both are in the same direction for the year so far with platinum down 11.1% and palladium up 14.1%.
US Mint Bullion Sales in 2022
Published United States Mint bullion sales were unchanged this week. Below is a sales breakdown of U.S. Mint bullion products with columns listing the number of coins sold during varying periods.
| US Mint Bullion Sales (# of coins) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday / This Week | Last Week | May | June | July | August | September | 2022 Sales | |
| $50 American Eagle 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 27,500 | 164,500 | 31,000 | 59,500 | 47,500 | 47,500 | 780,500 |
| $25 American Eagle 1/2 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 7,000 | 6,000 | 5,000 | 2,000 | 0 | 73,000 |
| $10 American Eagle 1/4 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 8,000 | 18,000 | 2,000 | 4,000 | 4,000 | 138,000 |
| $5 American Eagle 1/10 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 10,000 | 50,000 | 135,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 15,000 | 560,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 27,000 | 56,000 | 21,500 | 39,500 | 22,500 | 38,500 | 360,000 |
| $1 American Eagle 1 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 408,000 | 1,350,000 | 925,000 | 850,000 | 850,000 | 833,000 | 13,239,500 |
| $100 American Eagle 1 Oz Platinum Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23,500 | 15,500 | 1,000 | 0 | 80,000 |
Sir Kaiser, though unrelated, for comparative purposes, here are the performance records for some US stock indices and Crypto to date for this year (YTD 2022):
DJIA (DOW) – Down 20.95%
S&P 500 – Down 24.77%
NASDAQ – Down 32.40%
BITCOIN – Down 58.10%