Precious Metals Lag Gold Shares, XAU Pares Losses

Gold and silver futures remained firmly in negative territory Monday afternoon, unable to recoup a meaningful portion of their earlier declines.  The considerable weakness in precious metals occurred despite only a modest advance in the U.S. dollar.

COMEX gold futures finished down by $22.10, or 1.3%, at $1,737.60 per ounce, its lowest level since mid-September.  Silver futures fared even worse, sliding $0.93, or 2.8%, to $32.74 per ounce.

RBC Capital Markets vice president George Gero noted that “Some funds had recently added to gold positions as we saw open interest increase in the past weeks. A failure to hold this $1,750 area may result in more selling later.”

In contrast to the metals, shares of most gold and silver mining companies pared their losses this afternoon.  The Philadelphia Gold & Silver (XAU), which fell as much as 1.6% to 181.93 this morning, traded down by only 0.3% at 184.31 later in the day.

Several XAU components even made it into the black, including Yamana Gold (AUY), Randgold Resources (GOLD), and Silver Standard Resources (SSRI).  AUY advanced by 0.9% to $18.85, GOLD by 0.3% to $121.57, and SSRI by 0.2% to $14.54 per share.

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