Gold & Metals

Gold gives back $21.60 in two sessions while silver takes back 0.99%

Gold was written back at $4,622.30 this morning, down $11.90 on yesterday's mark and $21.60 below Monday's. Silver went the other way at $68.55. Platinum and palladium held a sixth session.

By The Metals Desk

What changed

This desk re-read all four metals on Kitco at press time, with the board's own quotes timestamped 05:59 New York time on 26 August, and wrote two of them back to the tape. Gold reads $4,622.30 the ounce.

What it means

  • Two down days after a run is a pause, and this desk will not dress it as anything else. The number a bench should carry out of this morning is not gold's direction but its width.
  • A session that had already travelled $59.10 by six in the morning, on a metal that has added $140.10 or 3.13% since 20 August on this paper's own marks, is a session in which the cost of a gram moves more between two customer appointments than the retailer's margin on the finished piece. That is the operational problem and it does not care which way the metal closes.
  • The white metals say the same thing in another register. Two pricing sources sit more than one percent apart on palladium this morning, which is not a quiet market either.

Key figures

gold, written back at press time$4,622.30
silver, written back$68.55
gold's give-back since Monday-$21.60
gold to silver ratio67.43

Source: the tape, 26 August, 05:59 ET

Two metals re-read, two written back

TradingEconomics, this paper's standing second page, read $4,623.84 the same morning, a gap of $1.54 or 0.033%, and the two agree. Silver reads $68.55 against TradingEconomics at $68.68, a gap of 13 cents or 0.19%. Both are now the marks of record and both are the numbers printed here.

The 05:00 marks they replace were $4,626.00 and $68.462.

gold, written back at press time$4,622.30

How far apart the two pricing sources sit, by metal

Palladium1.40%
Platinum0.83%
Silver0.19%
Gold0.033%

Source: the tape, 26 August, 05:59 ET

Gold has given back two sessions running

Gold has given back two sessions running. This paper's mark of record was $4,643.90 on Monday, $4,634.20 on Tuesday and $4,622.30 this morning: down $9.70, then down $11.90, for $21.60 or 0.465% across the two.

Kitco's own board shows a larger fall of $35.60, or 0.76%, because it measures against its own previous close rather than against the hour this paper marks each morning, and those are different references rather than a disagreement between sources.

The day's range on that board ran $4,615.50 to $4,674.60, so the morning mark sits $6.80 above the session low in a range $59.10 wide.

How far apart the two pricing sources sit, by metal
Figure
Palladium1.40%
Platinum0.83%
Silver0.19%
Gold0.033%

Two metals agree and get written. Two do not and are held Kitco against TradingEconomics at press time. A mark moves only when the second page corroborates it; the white metals have not corroborated for six sessions. Carat Capital graphics desk.

Silver went the other way and the ratio narrowed

Silver went the other way and has nearly undone yesterday. The mark was $68.74 on Monday, $67.88 on Tuesday and $68.55 this morning, so a fall of 86 cents was followed by a rise of 67 cents, leaving the metal 19 cents or 0.28% below where Monday left it.

Against yesterday alone it is up 0.99%. The gold to silver ratio, this desk's division of its own two marks, has narrowed to 67.43 from 68.27 yesterday, with Monday's at 67.56.

Two sessions of gold falling while silver held have taken the ratio back to roughly where the week started, which is a smaller statement than either metal's own move suggests.

Platinum and palladium are held rather than written, for a sixth consecutive session. Kitco read platinum at $1,856.00 this morning and TradingEconomics at $1,871.40, a gap of $15.40 or 0.83%. Kitco read palladium at $1,321.00 and TradingEconomics at $1,339.50, a gap of $18.50 or 1.40%.

Neither gap is inside the band this paper requires before it moves a mark, so the last agreed readings, $1,881.00 and $1,336.00, both set on 21 August, stand.

Both were checked against Kitco's own day ranges rather than assumed. Platinum ran $1,846.00 to $1,887.00 today and palladium $1,305.00 to $1,375.00, and each held mark sits inside its range.

The story so far

  1. 1,004.21 in Shanghai, and five bank counters spread 16.60 yuan apart
  2. Four metals up, and a palladium mark three sessions old retired
  3. The platinum hold ends at $1,725 after three mornings

Go deeper

Method

Two metals agree and get written. Two do not and are held

Sources5