Carat$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.
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%.
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.
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Palladium | −3.38% |
| Silver | −2.45% |
| Gold | −1.48% |
| Platinum | −0.60% |
IAll 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.
IISilver 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.
IIIWhat 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.
01Method · the desk’s arithmetic+
Percent fall, July 31, 2026, Kitco 5pm New York close.
02Sources4 documents
$4,041.70: gold's first monthly gain since February
Gold closes July higher for the first time since February.
The trade, filed before the New York open.
Prices, tenders and the one story that moved the industry overnight. Ninety seconds.
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