GOLD 00.00 1.20 0.00%
SILVER 00.00 1.20 0.00%

Metal Market Report April 2018 - Week 3 Edition

April 2018 - Week 3 Edition

Gold Reaches a 20-Month High After a Confrontational Presidential “Tweet” on April 11

Gold rose $12 last week and $23 in the first half of April.  Gold shot up from $1336 to $1346 in the three hours after President Trump announced the surgical strikes on Syria Friday night.  Even though there was no escalation of the conflict after that initial sortie, gold stayed around $1,346 over the weekend.

Last Wednesday, April 11, President Trump issued an advance warning of his air strike on Syria. Gold futures shot up to an intraday high of $1,369.30, marking gold’s highest price since August of 2016, when gold reached $1,375.  Last Wednesday, gold was not able to sustain these peaks, but this gives you a sort of ‘preview of coming attractions’ of what may happen to the price of gold if the Syrian conflict escalates.

Gold retreated to $1,336 by Friday afternoon’s market close, but the price escalated quickly to $1,346 Friday evening during the surgical air strike on Syria, with those prices staying firmly in place through Monday. The fact that the conflict did not escalate kept the price of gold stable rather than rising further.

These moves, however brief, confirm that gold is acting once again as a “safe haven” asset on the world scene. Last Wednesday’s action in the futures market was a “knee-jerk” reaction, but that is a healthy sign that the gold market is reacting instinctively, as it always has – rushing to gold in a time of global crisis.

Russia has warned that there will be “consequences” to this joint attack by the United States, France and Great Britain, but Russia has not tipped its hand (Putin will certainly not “tweet” his intentions in advance) so any retaliation could come as a shock to the West, sending gold prices up sharply once again.  An attack on American ships in the Mediterranean, for instance, could send gold over $1,400 quickly.

SS Central American Gold Ranges from Dust to Coins to Huge Bars

When the SS Central America was first discovered 7,200 feet below the surface of the Atlantic 130 miles off the Carolina coast in 1988, the largest piece of gold excavated was an 80-pound bar!  In the current treasure trove, excavated in 2014, the largest bar weighs in at 25 pounds, but there are several other gold bars of various weights highlighting a vast array of gold specimens ranging from gold “dust,” used by miners for buying drinks and supplies in the minefields, to gold coins or bars, stored in bank vaults.  The safe on the SS Central America was large enough to contain quite a few “pokes” (fabric wrapped with string, securing gold dust or small rocks containing gold).

Robert Evans, chief scientist of the SS Central America treasure, has been curating more than 3,100 gold coins, including privately minted and foreign gold coins, 45 pioneer gold ingots, packets of gold dust secured in the ship’s safe, as well as over 10,000 silver coins from the 2014 salvage operation.  A good share of these treasures are now available exclusively through our company.  We can’t promise you a 25-pound gold bar, but all the smaller sizes may soon be available for sale.

 

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