On Friday, prices of precious metals rose modestly, adding to the weekly gain in palladium, while trimming the weekly losses in gold, silver and platinum.
Snapping a three-session losing streak, gold for December delivery climbed by $7.30, or 0.4%, to settle at $1,976.10 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
"The jobs report has allowed the market to propose that the Federal Reserve is not as likely to raise interest rates. As a result, we’ve seen bond yields drop along with the dollar and that is certainly supporting the price of gold," Reuters quoted David Meger, director of metals trading at High Ridge Futures.
Early Friday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the economy added 187,000 jobs in July. That was below many economists’ forecasts of around 200,000 job gains for the month.
Gold prices decreased this week by 1.2% after slipping by 0.3% last week. Year to date, they have advanced by 8.2%.
Also gaining for the first time in four sessions, silver for September inched up by 1.9 cents, or 0.08%, closing at $23.716 an ounce.
Silver prices posted a 3.2% weekly decline, following losses of 1.5% last week and 1.4% in the week ending July 21. Its weekly drop was the worst since plunging 7.3% in the week ending June 23. Year to date, the precious metal has fallen by 1.4%.
In other precious metals, both on Friday and for the week:
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October platinum rose by $6.70, or 0.7%, to finish at $928.50 an ounce, reducing its weekly loss to 1.6%.
- Palladium for September delivery increased by $7.20, or 0.6%, to end at $1,264.60 an ounce, padding its weekly gain to 2%.
Reviewing their performance since the beginning of the year, platinum has declined by 14.3%, and palladium has dropped by 29.7%.
US Mint Bullion Sales in 2023
The U.S. Mint last published bullion sales changes on Wednesday, Aug. 2, when it adjusted its figures for July.
The table below presents a breakdown of U.S. Mint bullion products sold, with columns indicating the number of coins sold (not total ounces) during different time periods.
| US Mint Bullion Sales (# of coins) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday / This Week | May | June | July | 2023 Sales | |
| $50 American Eagle 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 60,500 | 35,000 | 41,000 | 666,500 |
| $25 American Eagle 1/2 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 18,000 | 1,000 | 0 | 73,000 |
| $10 American Eagle 1/4 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 32,000 | 4,000 | 0 | 132,000 |
| $5 American Eagle 1/10 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 80,000 | 60,000 | 0 | 385,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 47,000 | 17,000 | 16,500 | 293,000 |
| $1 American Eagle 1 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 1,593,000 | 1,482,000 | 209,100,000 | 11,815,000 |
| $100 American Eagle 1 Oz Platinum Coin | 0 | 1,200 | 3,500 | 0 | 12,700 |
Ag up 1.9 cents…we’re rich again! The Mint is going to have to reprice all their silver products.
U.S. Mint Director Madame Ventris C. Gibson:
Listen to the headlines…silver price is down sharply this year! Lower your silver coin & silver medals prices!!
Put your silver products on a weekly price grid like you do for all your gold, platinum & palladium products to be fair & transparent.
NumisdudeTX
Seth –
While I do support your idea, I doubt enough other potential collectors would react well to such a proposal. One of the advantages of Ag coins is knowing ahead of time how much they will cost – and the fluctuations in price are relatively small. With Au coins from the Mint, you don’t know how much it costs until you buy it! Also, the fluctuations in gold are large enough to pay for a single silver coin, sometimes.
Sam-I-Am,
I am just emphasizing the need to be fair in transparency with all precious metals the Mint sells. A silver grid could be made for instance that goes in $5 increments per ounce. As of now, we have no idea when the Mint will raise or lower its silver products prices until a few days before they go on sale.
NumisdudeTX
If the silver grid would be anything like the gold, platinum, palladium grid, the proof silver eagle would be $110 this year. Not that I like the current system but the mints metals grid is currently much to high.
Kaiser Wilhelm- It seems to take different products varying times to percolate through the US monetary system (see the concept of ‘velocity of money’). Some items get inflated faster than others, and there are many factors in play. Complex issues have complex solutions. I recall during the Great Recession, the Obama administration kept pumping money into the system, yet resulted in little moving up except the price of stocks, at least for over a year. Now we have had money printed essentially out of thin air by Trump AND Biden (Covid Relief, Inflation Reduction, etc.), to the tune of approximately… Read more »
Sam,
Just wait until we’re paying a Trillion dollars a year just to service our debt, now over $32T. This year, that price tag will read $660B plus. Just think how many migrants we could buy houses for with that money. Personally, I think the big driver of inflation is going to be oil, the price of gas is accelerating once again. It’s a good think that Biden sold most of out SPR to the Chinese. I’ve already shifted some funds into those stocks.
When and if we loose the status of being the World trade currency, than you will know how bad our government has ruined your money, our economy
Kaiser,
To add to your good points: I have often wondered why we have top Ph.D. economists that can’t agree on a way to operate our economy effectively always… especially since we have Nobel Prize winners in Economics each year. Shouldn’t they be able to solve such complicated matters to a large degree?
NumisdudeTX
Sir Kaiser-
Testify, brother, Testify!!
Sadly, most people are very uncomfortable with the concept that Luck (AKA random chance) plays a larger role in their lives than they would like to believe. Granted, chance favors the prepared mind, but randomness is at work in everyone’s life far more than most can admit to themselves. Some will attribute their path in life to their own “superior” abilities, some choose to believe it’s “God’s will”, but very often, it’s just the Cosmic Crapshoot influencing things, for good or ill.
Major D-
Thanks for the laugh!