CaratGold and silver cleared two pages. Platinum and palladium did not
Gold reads $4,393.10 and silver $65.00 at 06:04 New York, each corroborated on a second page within 0.2%. Platinum's two pages disagree by 0.66% and palladium's by 1.46%, so both hold yesterday's marks for a second session.
§1Two written, two held.
Kitco's live board at 06:04 New York time read gold $4,393.10 an ounce, silver $65.00, platinum $1,744.00 and palladium $1,303.00. This desk took a second reading on TradingEconomics the same morning: gold $4,394.27, silver $65.124, platinum $1,755.50 and palladium $1,322.00. Two of the four agree. Gold's two pages are $1.17 apart, 0.027%, and silver's are $0.124 apart, 0.19%, both inside rounding. Gold and silver are written back to this paper's tape at the Kitco reading and are the marks of record for today. Platinum's pages are $11.50 apart, 0.66%, and palladium's are $19.00 apart, 1.46%. Neither clears, so neither is written. Platinum holds $1,749.00 and palladium $1,311.00, both set on Kitco at 05:59 on 17 August and now two sessions old.
Against yesterday's marks the two metals that could be priced barely moved. Gold at $4,393.10 is $1.50 below the $4,394.60 this paper marked on 17 August, a fall of 0.03%. Silver at $65.00 is $0.38 below $65.38, a fall of 0.58%. Kitco's own board showed larger session declines than that against its own prior close, which is a different comparison from ours: this paper measures each morning against the number it printed the morning before, and by that measure gold is effectively unchanged and silver is down half a percent.
Both sides are live and both sides still disagree.
§2A pattern, not a morning.
The white-metal failure is now a pattern rather than a morning. At 04:58 this paper's tape desk read platinum at $1,738.00 on Kitco against $1,749.90 on TradingEconomics, a gap of 0.68%, and palladium at $1,297.00 on Kitco against $1,305.92 on FXEmpire, a gap of 0.69%. Both were held. Sixty-six minutes later this desk's own readings put platinum's gap at 0.66% and palladium's at 1.46%. The palladium gap has roughly doubled across the morning. What it is not is one frozen page: Kitco's platinum rose from $1,738.00 to $1,744.00 over those sixty-six minutes and its palladium from $1,297.00 to $1,303.00, Both sides are live and both sides still disagree.
The consequence lands on the bench rather than the screen. A workshop quoting a platinum band this morning is working from a price set on 17 August, because this paper will not print a number two sources cannot agree on. What can be said with the readings in hand is a range. Platinum is somewhere between $1,744.00 and $1,755.50, which against gold at $4,393.10 puts it between 39.7% and 40.0% of the gold price. The held mark of $1,749.00 sits at 39.8% of gold, inside that band, which is why it remains a serviceable planning figure even at two sessions old. Palladium admits no equivalent comfort: $19.00 is real money on a $1,300 metal.
A metal nobody can mark is a metal nobody should quote, and
the discipline that produces the awkward answer is the same one that makes the clean answer worth anything. Two of four metals were priced this morning and two were not, and saying so costs this paper two headline numbers it would rather have had. The alternative is to pick whichever page reads better and call it the price, which is how a tape stops meaning anything. Platinum and palladium print again the first morning two sources agree, and not before.
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