On Friday, the prices of precious metals showed minimal changes, but for the first week of the year, they all experienced losses, with the majority of them being sharp. Gold fell the least but still snapped a streak of three weekly gains.
Gold for February delivery dipped by 20 cents to settle at $2,049.80 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gold prices slipped by 1.1% this week, following gains of 0.1% last week, 1.6% in the week ending Dec. 22, and 1.1% in the week ending Dec. 15.
Up for a second day after four consecutive losses, silver for March delivery tacked on 12.8 cents, or 0.6%, closing at $23.315 an ounce. Silver prices dropped this week by 3.2% after falling by 2% last week.
In other precious metals, both on Friday and for the week:
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April platinum rose by $5.50, or 0.6%, to end at $971.80 an ounce, reducing its weekly loss to 3.7%.
- Palladium for March delivery edged down 70 cents to finish at $1,037.10 an ounce, resulting in a 6.5% weekly decline.
US Mint Bullion Sales in 2024
On Friday, the U.S. Mint reported no new gains in bullion sales after additions in each of the first three days of the week.
The table below presents a breakdown of U.S. Mint bullion products sold, with columns indicating the number of coins sold (not total ounces) during different time periods.
| US Mint Bullion Sales (# of coins) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday | Last Week | This Week / January | October | November | December | 2023 Sales | |
| $50 American Eagle 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 2,500 | 39,500 | 97,000 | 40,000 | 15,000 | 924,000 |
| $25 American Eagle 1/2 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 17,000 | 7,000 | 6,000 | 1,000 | 102,000 |
| $10 American Eagle 1/4 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 0 | 30,000 | 18,000 | 16,000 | 0 | 198,000 |
| $5 American Eagle 1/10 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | 5,000 | 40,000 | 30,000 | 55,000 | 15,000 | 675,000 |
| $50 American Buffalo 1 Oz Gold Coin | 0 | -7,000 | 23,000 | 36,500 | 14,000 | 5,500 | 387,000 |
| $1 American Eagle 1 Oz Silver Coin | 0 | 157,000 | 3,179,000 | 3,938,000 | 2,378,000 | 525,000 | 24,750,000 |
| $100 American Eagle 1 Oz Platinum Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12,700 |