Gold Down 28%, Platinum Fall 45%

123jump.com Staff
11 Sep, 2008
New York City

The relentless selling in the precious metals markets continued today as gold and silver fell to a new lows for the year. Gold has declined 11% for the year and dropped 28% from its peak in March. Silver traded at a 2-year low and platinum traded to one-year low. The sudden rise in dollar and drop in base metals and precious metals has surprised investors. Gold is trading only 5% higher than its one-year low.

[R]6:00PM New York – Precious metals prices drop to a new low for the year as dollar rebounds and investors sell metals.[/R]

Gold has declined 28% from its peak in March and for the first time drops below $750 in the year. The yellow metal which generally benefits from the global stock and bond market weakness has not been the favorite of investors, despite a steady rise in inflation. The sharp reversal in sentiment in favor of the U.S. dollar has dragged all precious metals lower in the last five months. Silver prices are at a 2-year low and platinum price has fallen 45% from the high of $2,021 in March of this year to $1,142 an ounce.

Commodities, Metals, and Currencies

Crude oil decreased $2.13 to close at $100.45 a barrel for a front month contract, natural gas decreased 22 cent to $7.18 per mBtu and gasoline futures increased 8.81 cents to close at 274.97 cents per gallon.

Gold decreased $19.10 in New York trading to close at $743.90 per ounce, silver closed down $0.37 cents to $10.51 per ounce and copper for the front month delivery increased 0.40 cent to $3.11 per pound.

Gold has declined 11% in the year and is likely to decline further as precious metal investors switch to the U.S. dollar. The gold reached its 27-year peak in March to 1,033 an ounce and since then fallen 28%.

Wheat futures closed up 0.50 cents in Chicago trading and closed at $7.26 a bushel. Sugar decreased 0.27 cent to 13.61 cents a pound. Soybean future closed down 2.00 cents to $11.76 a bushel.

Dollar edged higher against euro to $1.3944 and edged lower against yen to 106.95.

Yields on U.S. bonds were unchanged to 3.63% with 10 years of maturities and decreased to 4.21% with 30-year of maturities.