Precious metals rallied on Wednesday after trading lower early in the session with platinum futures leading the complex higher. Gold and silver were mixed, and were trading near their lowest levels in two weeks.
Platinum
PL00,
+1.48%
and palladium PA00were both trading higher on the day, with platinum up more than 3% at one point to trade at more than $1,000 an ounce, its strongest level in two weeks. However, it gave back some of those gains in recent trade.
Palladium
PA00,
-0.79%,
meanwhile, was down 2.4%, or $50, to $1,994 per ounce.
Futures for the yellow metal
GC00,
-0.34%
erased earlier losses to trade down $2 or 0.1%, to $1,832 on Wednesday, while silver
SI00,
+0.24%
futures were up 10 cents, or 0.5%, to $21.80.
In other markets, U.S. stocks edged lower, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average turning lower on the session shortly after the open.
Analysts with Commerzbank’s commodity research desk said that gold and silver are reversing some of their gains over the past two weeks because of rising yields in the U.S. They also blamed a historic European inflation print this week and the European Central Bank’s plans to raise interest rates in July for souring the precious metal’s allure.
After advancing 9.4 basis points on Friday, the 10-year Treasury yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
2.924%
added to its recent move higher on Wednesday as bonds sold off (bond prices move inversely to yields). The dollar also moved higher, with the ICE dollar index
DXY,
+0.72%
up 0.7% to 102.4.
Finally, copper
HG00,
+0.44%
was up 0.6% to $4.32 per pound.
