CaratGold kept $26.80, platinum gave back $29.00: the settle against the spike
This paper marked all four metals at 5:58am on Friday. By the 5:00pm close gold had added a further $26.80, while platinum gave back $29.00, palladium $25.00 and silver $0.83. Only gold improved on its morning mark.
§1Two marks, eleven hours apart.
Carat Capital printed four metals at 5:58am New York on Friday, an hour and a half before the payrolls release. The close, eleven hours later, disagreed with three of them. Gold was marked at $4,314.50 in the morning and settled at $4,341.30, adding a further $26.80. Silver was marked at $64.29 and settled at $63.46, giving back $0.83. Platinum was marked at $1,772.00 and settled at $1,743.00, giving back $29.00. Palladium was marked at $1,382.00 and settled at $1,357.00, giving back $25.00. Both readings come from the same Kitco spot page at two stated times, and both were correct when taken.
In percentage terms the reversal is sharper than the dollars suggest. Platinum was up 3.14% on the session at the morning mark and closed up 1.46%, surrendering more than half its gain. Palladium was up 2.14% and closed up 0.30%, surrendering almost all of it. Silver was up 4.71% and closed up 3.36%. Gold alone went the other way, up 1.77% in the morning and 2.41% at the close. One number was bought in gold and sold in the white metals, in the same session, which is the cleanest split this tape has printed in a fortnight.
§2The split, in percentage points.
The ratio records it. Gold to silver stood at 69.04 on Thursday's close, tightened to 67.11 by Friday morning as silver ran, then widened back to 68.41 by the close as silver faded and gold did not. Platinum told the same story against the same benchmark: 41.1% of the gold price at the morning mark, 40.15% at the close. A white metal that cannot hold its ratio through an afternoon in which gold rises is a metal being traded on industrial demand rather than on monetary fear, and Friday's news was monetary.
One number was bought in gold and sold in the white metals, in the same session
§3Three sessions, one metal.
Set against the marks this paper carried on Wednesday, the three-session picture is starker still. Gold has added $183.00 an ounce, or 4.40%. Silver has added $2.16, or 3.52%. Palladium has added $7.00, or 0.52%. Platinum has added $2.00, or 0.11%, which after three sessions and a jobs report is indistinguishable from standing still. The white metals went along for Thursday and Friday morning and were sold back to roughly where they started.
A rally the industrial metals will not follow is a monetary rally, and it should be planned for as one. Platinum's inability to keep eleven hundredths of a per cent over three sessions in which gold took four and a half is the tell, because platinum's demand base is autocatalysts and fabrication rather than reserve buying, and neither of those changes because American payrolls printed negative. For the bench this is good news in one narrow sense: the platinum-to-gold ratio has widened again, and a platinum band is once more costing about forty per cent of the gold equivalent in metal. For the tape it is a warning that the week's move has one buyer behind it, not four.
The trade, filed to your inbox before the New York open.
Prices, tenders and the one story that moved the industry overnight — read in ninety seconds.
Subscribe free →