9th June 2018

Once again, a very quiet close in the gold markets on Friday, with the precious metal finishing practically unchanged heading into the G-7 talks held this weekend in Quebec. While gold has been treading water pretty much all week, silver has seen a decent move higher over the last few days. On Friday, the complex closed at $16.82, close to a two-month high. Palladium similarly neared a two-month high as well, but platinum is sitting things out and like gold, is not doing very much. Other markets ended on a relatively quiet note on Friday; energy prices closed down by about $.40/barrel and we could see further weakness going into Monday as the Saudis said over the weekend that they have indeed raised production recently. Base metals ended lower; investors are reassessing the possibility of labor troubles at one of Chile’s leading copper mines and perhaps coming to the conclusion that there is not much to worry about. In fact, the owner of the mine, BHP Billiton, said over the weekend that it expects to wrap up negotiations on a favorable note and so we could see further weakness in copper going into Monday’s session as well. Lead prices also sold off sharply on Friday on reports of a significant decline in LME canceled warrants.