Precious Metals Fluctuate in Financial Markets

Precious metals are trading within a very narrow range today, following major fluctuations in Friday's trading session alongside the overall unstable trading in financial markets. The dollar managed to gain against a basket of foreign currencies, where crude fell to levels below $80 per barrel, reducing the precious metal's attractiveness for speculators; whereas numerous speculators, investors and portfolios are diversifying their portfolios significantly, where they are originally buying gold every once in while.

Meanwhile, silver is witnessing heavy fluctuations due to speculation that is seen on the metal; whereas platinum suffered as well heavy volatility after the unexpected contraction reported in UK on Friday and the strong growth performance set by South Korea today which affected the industrial metal heavily.

On Friday gold traded between 1068.50 and 1049.10, closing with a decline of 0.47% at 1054.80; silver witnessed traded with high volatility to close at 17.66 gaining 0.11%; whereas platinum faced minor fluctuations after the continuous battle between bears and bulls, closing at $1359.00 per ounce.

Meanwhile, U.S. stocks fell on Friday after sharp trading, as for today we see rising Asian stocks amid optimism from the Asian economy and its strong pace to recovery, especially after South Korea announced better than expected growth, expanding at the fastest pace in seven years. On the other hand, commodity indices plunged last Friday; where the S&P GSCI index closed at 519.28, yet still remaining near its highest levels recorded this year.

The volatile and mixed trading seen in financial markets is being reflected onto precious metals, where rapid and massive movement of cash between different financial markets, is due to better investments inline with traders' sensitivity to new developments in the financial markets.

Gold is seen trading at 1055.30 near Friday's closing levels as of 02:36 EST; silver is trading at $17.69 per ounce witnessing a minor rise; whereas platinum declined slightly today to 1354.00.

Expectations still point to fluctuations continuing throughout financial markets this week, alongside the release of corporate earnings. Meanwhile, the third quarter's advanced GDP estimate is to be released from the U.S. this week, thus increasing volatility in financial markets. This could cause more jitters within precious metal markets, where we expect mixed trading to continue along with bearish corrections, despite of the medium term's bullish outlook.