$1,256 palladium: the white metals give the month back
Kitco's Friday close puts palladium at $1,256, down 3.38%, silver at $57.44, down 2.45%, and platinum at $1,644, down 0.60%. The gold-silver ratio widened to about 70.4.
By The Metals Desk
What changed
The white metals took Friday harder than gold did. Kitco's 5pm close put palladium at $1,256.00, down $44.00 or 3.38%, silver at $57.44, down $1.445 or 2.45%, and platinum at $1,644.00, down $10.00 or 0.60%.
What it means
- One down session across three metals is a dollar story and should change nobody's inventory plan. The number that should change behaviour is the ratio near 70.4, because a ratio that widens while silver sits under $60 is telling silver houses that their input cost has stopped rising without falling either.
- That is the moment to reprice, not the moment to wait. The other lesson is procedural: a tape that quotes three metals from three different snapshots is worse than useless, and this edition fixes it.
Key figures
| silver, −2.45% | $57.44 |
|---|---|
| platinum, −0.60% | $1,644.00 |
| palladium, −3.38% | $1,256.00 |
| gold-silver ratio | 70.4 |
Source: Kitco close, July 31
All three, one direction
Three metals with three unrelated demand stories fell together on the same afternoon, which is almost always a currency event rather than a supply one. The dollar rebounded, and everything priced in it went the other way.
Silver's failure is the one the counter will feel. The metal spent July working at $60 and did not clear it, and at $57.44 against gold at $4,041.70 the ratio sits near 70.4, wider than it has been for most of the past month.
Silver has run ahead of gold all year and has now stalled just under a round number, which is precisely the level at which a silver programme is either rebuilt in lighter gauge or repriced outright. A house that has done neither is absorbing the difference in its own margin.
Friday's session, by metal
Source: Kitco close, July 31
Silver stalls under $60
Where the month ended for silver and platinum is genuinely unsettled, and this desk is not going to pretend otherwise. One data provider shows silver down about 2.5% over the month and platinum up about 3.5%. Wire reports from the same session had both metals heading for a monthly gain.
The two readings cannot both be right, and neither can be reconciled without a settlement series this desk can verify. So today's entry carries the day move from a single source at a single print time and leaves the month blank until it can be checked.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Palladium | −3.38% |
| Silver | −2.45% |
| Gold | −1.48% |
| Platinum | −0.60% |
Percent fall, July 31, 2026, Kitco 5pm New York close. Carat Capital graphics desk.
What we will not print
Platinum's relative calm is worth noting inside a bad session. A 0.60% fall against palladium's 3.38% separates a metal with a forecast fourth consecutive supply deficit from one exposed to a vehicle fleet electrifying underneath it.
At $1,644 platinum trades at roughly 41% of the gold price, so a bridal ring in the scarcer, denser metal still costs less in raw material than the same ring in gold. That gap has been open for a year and the trade has not taken it, because the constraint was never the metal price.
Fewer benches can set platinum, and a house that cannot set it will not quote it.
The story so far
Go deeper
Method
Percent fall, July 31, 2026, Kitco 5pm New York close.