Monthly Archives: April 2012

U.S. stocks and commodities, to include gold, silver and other precious metals, plunged Wednesday in a free fall that began Tuesday after minutes from the latest Fed policy meeting dampened expectations for another round of quantitative easing.

Gold prices for June delivery declined $57.90, or 3.5%, to $1,614.10 an ounce on the Comex in New York. It was the lowest settlement price for gold since January 10. The yellow metal moved from an intraday low of $1,614.00 to a high of $1,649.50 [...]

United States Mint product sales showed a bit more zest after two rather mundane weekly reports in which collectors appeared to have taken a spring break from buying.

Whereas the last U.S. Mint sales report and the one before had respective 23 and 24 products outperforming their prior weekly sales, the latest data shows 43 shining brighter. Still, overall unit sales were sluggish without any new products debuting during the reporting period [...]

Underscoring once again just how much of a premium Fed QE3-oriented expectations had added to certain market price equations, gold fell out of bed on Tuesday afternoon after the ritual parsing of the Fed's March 13 meeting minutes left many a smugly hopeful bullish participant with nothing but... hope to hang onto, as their trades/bets (as well as sentiment) soured very fast.

Currency strategists at Brown Brothers Harriman had cautioned as early as yesterday morning that while many market players were expecting at least some kind of QE3 hint in the FOMC's meeting minutes, there might not be anything in there but a summary mention of the fact that if conditions dictate, then such measures might be put into motion [...]

Collectors will pay more for all five Star-Spangled Banner commemorative coin products after the introductory sale price period ends on Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 5 PM EDT.

Prices will rise across the board by $5. While the increases will be felt less for the gold commemoratives with prices already hovering in the $500 range, they are more noticeable for the silver commemoratives as they represent hikes of more than 10% [...]

Despite a late Tuesday afternoon $31+ plunge in gold prices, it is very unlikely that the United States Mint will change prices Wednesday on its numismatic gold coins, or proof Platinum Eagle for that matter.

The reason is that the two precious metals have not fluctuated much in London over the last several days. Gold is currently averaging around $1,666 an ounce and platinum's average is just under $1,645 [...]

Gold closed a bit down in normal trading hours Tuesday but then tumbled in electronic trading after minutes from the Fed's latest policy meeting revealed that policy makers were less keen on another round of quantitative easing.

Spot gold was last quoted down $32.30 to $1,644.70 while silver had dropped 37.0 cents to $32.62 an ounce. Losses in PGM metals were modest with [...]

Sales of American Eagle gold and silver bullion coins rebounded in March as investors bought on multiple pricing dips. With gold falling 1.3% and silver tumbling 6.2% last month, buyers were able to scoop up United States Mint bullion products at comparative bargain prices.

American Eagle Silver sales reached 2.542 million, up 70.6% from February when dismal sales of 1.49 million were logged. The pace, however, was off 8.1% from the same time a year ago [...]