Precious metals were dragged down across the board for two consecutive weeks with gold experiencing the worst of it with its third weekly drop. The largest driving force for the loses continued to be the US dollar’s continuing strength.

Although it was briefly tested with the Fed’s quarter-point interest rate drop Wednesday, the dollar pulled back and precious metals followed in the opposite direction.

Silver, gold and platinum slumped on the London Fix for Monday through Friday with a loss of $0.75, $39 and $91 respectively.

Silver closed down this week by 4.4% to $16.19 an ounce compared to last Friday’s close of $16.68. Platinum dropped by 4.6% to $1,878 an ounce compared to its previous Friday close of $1,951.

Gold surged up by nearly 2% after the Fed’s Wednesday rate change. However, it dropped back down Thursday and just slightly recovered Friday. It lost $39 this week to close at $854 an ounce. Last Friday London gold closed at $892 an ounce.

“The better than expected US jobs data and the unexpected 1.4% jump in March factory orders swiftly knocked gold down toward the $840’s early in the day (Friday), but the metal regained a bit of composure as news of a renewed liquidity injection effort by the ECB, The Fed, and the Swiss National Bank lifted speculative spirits in the bull camp," said senior analyst Jon Nadler at Kitco Bullion Dealers.

The silver, gold and platinum weekly charts and comparisons from last week are below. The weekly business recap video from Reuters and three related precious metal articles links are included as well.

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