This morning's action saw the Gold/Silver Ratio of the 2 formerly monetary precious metals hit its lowest since mid-July as silver's jump outpaced gold yet again, setting its highest London benchmark at the City's 12 noon market-clearing auction since December 2012 for US traders before retreating back below $32 per Troy ounce for the 3rd time this year.
Gold trading meantime saw the spot price spike to $2685 and then drop $30 after fixing above $2667 at London's AM benchmarking auction Thursday morning.
That marked gold's 6th day in a row of new record USD highs at the London fixings, and its 9th in the past 11 sessions.
Silver's jump to 12-year Dollar highs saw the return of #silversqueeze across social media – the
hashtag used to ramp silver prices from below $25 to almost $30 per Troy ounce in late-January 2021 as long-time silver bulls seized on the 'meme stock' phenomenon of younger retail investors using their Covid stimulus checks to trade penny shares.
Today's spike in silver prices also pushed
the Gold/Silver Ratio – a simple measure of the 'safe haven' metal priced in terms of its more industrially useful cousin – down to a 10-week low near 82 ounce of silver per 1 ounce of gold.
With the Gold-Silver Ratio averaging 52.8 across the past 5 decades, that still priced silver 30% below its long-term average in terms of gold.
Now marking
30 days of new all-time gold price highs in 2024 so far, the more expensive precious metal has recorded more fresh highs only twice before, first during 1979's surge to the big peak of January 1980, and then during the 2011 surge to what also proved to be a multi-year high top.
"In the coming weeks, gold could set new records and
we see $3000 an ounce as the maximum extension of the bullish movement," said a note from analysts at Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo as gold struck yesterday's then-record high.
"The rush for gold just keeps coming," claims US investment magazine
Fortune.
Prices in India however, including the new lower tariff of 6%, continue to run at a discount to London quotes,
suggesting weak domestic demand versus supplies as the advertised cost at retail broke yet more new records through 77,000 Rupees per 10 grams today.
Gold in China also continued trading below London quotes on Thursday, showing a discount of $11 per Troy ounce while setting a new Shanghai Gold Exchange record of ¥598 per gram.
Coming into 2024, expert analysts and traders predicted a 2024 annual average of $2059 per Troy ounce in January's
Forecast Survey from precious metals trade body the London Bullion Market Association.
Gold has so far averaged 24.0% more than that year-to-date.
Re-surveyed in July, 14 of those analysts and traders
raised their full-year average annual forecast to $2317 – still almost 10% below the year-to-date outcome of $2255 so far – with the most bullish participant predicting that gold would peak at $2650 sometime before New Year's Eve.
After yesterday's new US home sales data and crude oil demand statistics blew past analyst forecasts, today brought news that US durable goods orders held firm last month from July's surge – albeit thanks only to continued defense procurement – plus a surprise dip in the number of people claiming jobless benefits on the latest weekly figures.
A meeting of China's politburo today said the Beijing dictatorship will
use "necessary fiscal spending" to hit the nation's 5% economic growth target, but it gave no specifics.
China's CSI300 stock index jumped another 4%, heading for its strongest weekly gains in a decade, while the MSCI World Index of developed-world equity markets set its 4th new all-time high in 5 sessions.
January's LBMA survey found analysts on average forecasting that silver would average $24.80 per Troy ounce in 2024.
To date, the more industrially-useful precious metal has beaten that projection by almost 10% at $27.18.
