by Ed Steer, Gold Seek:

The gold price traded unevenly sideways to a bit lower until shortly before 1 p.m. China Standard Time on their Friday afternoon.  It crept a bit higher from there until the high tick of the day was set at, or just before, the 10:30 a.m. BST morning gold fix in London.  It was sold back to about the unchanged mark by the COMEX open in New York — and it then had a down/up move between then and around 10:35 a.m. EDT.  It was quietly down hill from there — and gold was closed close to its low tick of the day.

The high and low ticks were reported as $1,735.50 and $1,703.10 in the June contract.  The May/June spread differential was 4 dollars — and June/August was a bit under 13 bucks.

Gold was closed in New York on Friday afternoon at $1,702.90 spot, down $15.10 from Thursday — and about 24 dollars off its Kitco-recorded high of the day.  Net HFT gold volume was pretty light [but heavier than usual] at 173,000 contracts — and there was a bit over 71,000 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume out of June and into future months in this precious metal.

The silver price had a bit of a down/up move starting 6:00 p.m. EDT in New York on Thursday evening — and from around 9:15 a.m. China Standard Time on their Friday morning, it really didn’t do much of anything until it ticked higher about 1 p.m. BST in London, which was twenty minutes before the COMEX open.  It was sold lower even before the COMEX open — and the low tick was set around 8:50 a.m. in New York trading.  It rallied a decent amount over the next two hours, but ‘da boyz’ showed up to cap the price and turn it lower at 10:50 a.m. EDT.  It was sold lower until 12:15 p.m. EDT — and it crept a few pennies higher until trading ended at 5:00 p.m.

The low and high ticks in silver were recorded by the CME Group as $15.98 and $15.505 in the July contract.  The May/July spread differential was a tad under 4 cents — and July/September was a hair under 6 cents.

Silver was closed in New York on Friday afternoon at $15.475 spot, up 11.5 cents on the day — and 32.5 cents off its Kitco-recorded high tick of the day.  Net volume was nothing special, but higher than ‘normal’ at a hair over 54,000 contracts — and there was about 5,500 contracts worth of roll-over/switch volume on top of that.

The platinum price struggled higher until minutes before 12 o’clock noon in Zurich — and was then sold lower until 9 a.m. in New York. The ensuing rally was capped and turned lower around 10:25 a.m. EST — and it was all down hill until shortly after the COMEX close.  It added a few dollars in after-hours trading.  Platinum finished the Friday session in New York at $767 spot, up 6 bucks from its close on Thursday — and 14 dollars off its high tick of the day.

Palladium wandered very unevenly higher until the 2:15 p.m. afternoon gold fix in Shanghai on their Friday afternoon.  It was sold lower until shortly before 1 p.m. in New York, but from there it wandered quietly higher until the market closed at 5:15 p.m. EDT.  Palladium finished the day at exactly $1,800 spot, up 9 dollars from its Thursday close.

Based on the Kitco closing prices for gold and silver posted above, the gold/silver ratio worked out to 110 to 1.

The dollar index closed very late on Thursday afternoon in New York at 99.89 — and opened down about 5 basis points once trading commenced around 7:45 p.m. EDT on Thursday evening, which was 7:45 a.m. China Standard Time on their Friday morning.  It was sold a bit lower until around 10:40 a.m. CST — and then had a bit of an up/down move between then and 8:30 a.m. in New York.  It jumped higher at that point — and the 99.94 high tick was set about 10:05 a.m. EDT.  It headed sharply lower from there — and the 99.10 low tick was set about five minutes before the 11 a.m. EDT London close.  Another ‘rally’ began at that point, which lasted until around 3:25 p.m. — and it was sold off a bit into the 5:30 p.m. close.

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