Precious Metals Post Weekly Losses, XAU Tumbles

Gold and silver futures added to their recent stretch of declines on Friday amid weakness in the precious metals complex.

COMEX gold for February delivery settled down by $13.30, or 0.8%, at $1,656.60 per ounce.  In doing so, the yellow metal posted a weekly loss of 1.8% and turned lower on a year-to-date basis by 1.2%.

March silver futures at the COMEX closed down by $0.52, or 1.6%, at $31.21 per ounce.  With the slide, silver stretched its weekly loss to 2.3%, but remains up by 3.2% thus far in 2013.

Gold and silver stocks came under heavy selling pressure as well, as earlier today the Philadelphia Gold & Silver Index (XAU) fell by as much as 2.7% to 150.53 – its lowest level since August 3rd of last year.

This afternoon, notable XAU components in the red included Barrick Gold (ABX), IAMGOLD (IAG), and Silver Standard Resources (SSRI).  Shares of ABX dropped by 1.3% to $32.85, IAG by 3.6% to $8.44, and SSRI by 2.1% to $12.32.

The broader equity markets fared quite better than most gold and silver stocks, as the S&P 500 Index traded up by 0.4% at 1,500.68.