Precious metals kicked off the new trading week and month on Monday with losses that ranged from 0.7% for platinum to 3.9% for palladium. Silver drove its losing streak to ten in a row and ended the day near a three-month low. Gold, meanwhile, finished at a more than two-and-a-half-month low.
Gold for June delivery fell $48.10, or 2.5%, to end at $1,863.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The settlement was the lowest since Feb. 15 when gold finished $1,856.20 an ounce.
The precious metals are getting hit early this week by the bearish outside market forces of a strong U.S. dollar index that is near a 20-year high, higher U.S. Treasury yields and chart-based selling pressure as the near-term technical have eroded significantly the past two weeks," Jim Wyckoff, a senior analyst at Kitco Inc, said in a daily research note.
Gold traded between $1,853.40 and $1,900.40. It traded higher on Friday, trimming its losses on the week and in April, respectively, to 1.2% and 2.2%.
Silver for July delivery dropped 50.1 cents, or 2.2%, to end at $22.584 an ounce. The settlement was silver’s weakest since it closed Feb. 4 at $22.475 an ounce. Silver futures ranged from $22.13 to $22.88. On Friday, they marked weekly and monthly losses of 4.8% and 8.2%.
In other precious metals futures prices on Monday:
-
July platinum shed $6.80 to $932.80 an ounce, trading between $908.80 and $937.40.
- Palladium for June delivery tumbled $91 to $2,216 an ounce, ranging from $2,155.50 to $2,314
US Mint Bullion Sales in 2022
Published United States Mint bullion sales were unchanged on Monday. Below is a sales breakdown of U.S. Mint bullion products with columns listing the number of coins sold during varying periods.
| US Mint Bullion Sales (# of coins) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday / May | Last Week | March | April | 2022 Sales | |
| $50 American Eagle 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 19,500 | 140,500 | 80,500 | 430,500 |
| $25 American Eagle 1/2 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 5,000 | 3,000 | 53,000 |
| $10 American Eagle 1/4 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 20,000 | 14,000 | 102,000 |
| $5 American Eagle 1/10 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 75,000 | 25,000 | 320,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 10,000 | 64,500 | 27,000 | 181,500 |
| $1 American Eagle 1 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 17,000 | 1,080,500 | 850,000 | 8,431,500 |
| $100 American Eagle 1 Oz Platinum Coin | 0 | 0 | 14,200 | 0 | 40,000 |
| $25 American Eagle 1 Oz Palladium Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
