Carat$4,643.90: gold sets the highest mark this tape has carried
Gold was written back to the tape at $4,643.90 an ounce, up $41.50 or 0.90% on Friday's print and $485.60 above this tape's 5 August mark. Silver eased to $68.74.
§1The mark, and the second page.
Gold was re-read at press time on Monday and written back to this paper's tape at $4,643.90 an ounce. That is $41.50, or 0.90%, above the $4,602.40 that stood as the mark of record through Saturday and Sunday, and it is the highest gold figure this tape has carried since the series opened on 5 August at $4,158.30. Across the eighteen marks in between, the gain is $485.60, or 11.68%, on this desk's arithmetic. The second page agreed. TradingEconomics read $4,646.92 at the same hour, a gap of $3.02 or 0.065%, well inside the band this tape treats as agreement.
TradingEconomics attributes the move to concern about United States fiscal sustainability after the Treasury decided to increase its long-dated debt purchases substantially, which pulled bond yields and the dollar down together, and to geopolitical risk around threatened United States sanctions on Iran and the energy disruption they could bring. Its market note describes gold at approximately $4,630 an ounce on Monday and calls that a peak since mid-May. The note and the live quotation on the same page are $16.92 apart. This paper prints neither: the mark of record is Kitco's $4,643.90, read at 05:58 New York time, and the divergence between two figures on one outside page is disclosed here rather than smoothed away.
§2Silver goes the other way.
Silver did not follow. Kitco read $68.74 an ounce at the same hour, down $0.12 or 0.17% from Friday's $68.86, and that reading was written back. TradingEconomics read $68.90, a gap of $0.16 or 0.23%. That is marginally wider than the sub-0.2% rule of thumb this tape works to, and it is the same order of gap the tape desk accepted on the same metal at 05:00 this morning, so it is treated as agreement and stated here rather than folded away. Silver's high on this tape is still $69.31, set on 21 August. The gold-to-silver ratio now reads 67.56 against 66.84 on Sunday's marks, 0.72 of a point wider, because gold rose while silver fell.
A 0.90% session on the screen is $1.33 a gram at the bench.
§3The two metals held.
The two white metals were not written back. Kitco read platinum at $1,874.00 and TradingEconomics at $1,892.90, a gap of $18.90 or 1.01%, beyond the agreement band and the same order of gap both pages have shown on this metal every session since 12 August. The last mark on which the two agreed, $1,881.00, stands for a third consecutive session and sits inside today's live range rather than outside it. Palladium is held on the same basis at $1,336.00, with Kitco reading $1,326.00. A held mark is not a promoted one, and neither figure is a price this paper claims to have re-verified today.
The number that matters at a bench is not $4,643.90 but $149.30, which is what an ounce works out to a gram at 31.1035 grams to the troy ounce, against $147.97 on Friday. A 0.90% session on the screen is $1.33 a gram at the counter, and on a ten-gram chain bought forward that is $13.30 of metal that was not in Friday's costing. The rally is eighteen marks and 11.68% deep on this tape alone, and any counter that has not repriced since Friday is carrying the difference itself.
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