In the precious metals markets this week

In the precious metals markets this week . . .

GOLD:
Monex spot gold prices opened the week at $1,605 . . . traded as high as $1,619 on Thursday and as low as $1,589 on Monday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $1,606, up $1 for the week.

SILVER:
Monex spot silver prices opened the week at $29.05 . . . traded as high as $29.54 on Tuesday and as low as $28.78 on Monday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $29.13, up $.08 for the week.

Kenapa Perlu Membeli Emas ?

Kenapa Perlu Membeli Emas ?

2011 19-23 Gold Silver Analysis

GOLD:
Monex spot gold prices opened the week at $1,675 . . . traded as high as $1,677 on Tuesday and as low as $1,560 on Thursday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $1,594, down $81 for the week.  Gold support is now anticipated at $1,576, then $1,535, and then $1,465 . . . with resistance anticipated at $1,617, then $1,658, and then $1,727.

SILVER:
Monex spot silver prices opened the week at $31.10 . . . traded as high as $31.93 on Tuesday and as low as $28.45 on Tuesday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $29.50, down $1.60 for the week.  Silver support is now anticipated at $29.27, then $28.50, and then $27.78 . . . and resistance anticipated at $29.85, then $30.90, and then $31.48.

Gold as a banking reserve

The unsuitability of using gold in coins for cash transactions at the small end of the monetary scale is not the only barrier to a gold centred currency. There are other difficulties in using a gold based currency where large sums are involved.

For example, in modern economies normal practice is that salaries are paid at the end of the month. There are more than twenty million workers in the UK alone, and their earnings exceed $3,000 per month. So they are issued with $60 billion at each month end. This is equivalent to about 6,000 tonnes of gold and is a figure achieved without taking into account any savings, or any of the substantial monetary floats required to support non-salary related corporate and government expenditure.

Yet the entire British central bank reserve is only about 400 tonnes, which shows that Britain (like any other western country) could not possibly underpin with gold the supply of its national currency necessary to support the prevailing level of economic activity, at least not without a massive increase in the pound sterling value of gold.

Token coinage systems

Any coin collection will clearly show that by far the most common systems for coinage are indeed based on token values. Governments decree that a given coin, worth in metallic terms substantially less than its monetary face value, constitutes a legal payment of a debt. To support this construct it has been necessary to forbid independent manufacture of coins, and to assist enforcement by making the technology of coin production relatively difficult to copy.

Deliberately overvalued coins tend to stay in circulation precisely because they have no intrinsic metallic value, which is a material advantage to the state, and even though in such systems silver and gold coins are occasionally allowed to circulate in parallel and in modest numbers their circulation generally declines (Gresham's Law again).

Gold, Silver Analysis For Next Week

GOLD:
Monex spot gold prices opened the week at $1,735 . . . traded as high as $1,750 on Thursday and as low as $1,704 on Tuesday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $1,714, down $21 for the week.  Gold support is now anticipated at $1,706, then $1,675, and then $1,614 . . . with resistance anticipated at $1,728, then $1,754, and then $1,779.

SILVER:
Monex spot silver prices opened the week at $32.62 . . . traded as high as $33.12 on Thursday and as low as $31.44 on Thursday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $32.22, down $.40 for the week.  Silver support is now anticipated at $32.06, then $30.95, and then $29.80 . . . and resistance anticipated at $32.80, then $33.78, and then $35.33.

Gold bullion coins

The standard weights of bullion coins are: one ounce, half ounce, quarter ounce and tenth ounce. Other weight of gold coins available include twentieth ounce, one twenty-fith of an ounce, two ounces, ten ounces, and one kilo.

There are a number of gold bullion coins in circulation in the world. The attraction of these is that they retain near full bullion value regardless of either change of government or being transported outside their country of issue.

The major bullion coins:

Issuing Country	Coin	Available fractions	Fine gold content (full coin)
Australia	Nugget	10, 2, 1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1	31.104 grams
Canada	Maple	1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1, 0.0667 (1/15th), 0.05 (1/20th)	31.104 grams
South Africa	Krugerrand	1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1	31.104 grams
United Kingdom	Britannia	1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1	31.104 grams
United Kingdom	Sovereign	1, 0.5	7.315 grams
United States	Eagle	1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.1	31.104 grams

Note: 31.104 grams = 1 troy oz.

Gold coins were hardly produced anywhere between 1933 and 1965. Then, once the private demand for gold ownership had been nearly extinguished, it was finally the South Africans who started minting again in earnest from 1967. But there are still very few gold coins around, and currently there is nowhere that they circulate effectively as money.

There are practical problems with gold being used directly as physical legal money. It is too valuable to represent the smallest required unit of currency. For instance, in America, a dime (ten cents) is equivalent to rather less than 1/100th of a gram of gold. The physical size of a dime's worth of gold is a cube of edge 0.8 millimetres, i.e. about the size of a crystal of brown sugar. This is far too small to be practical. The smallest usable coin really needs a volume of at least 150 times larger. This makes token coinage a necessity.

Gold & Silver Analysis For Next Week

GOLD:
Monex spot gold prices opened the week at $1,717 . . . traded as high as $1,758 on Friday and as low as $1,709 on Monday and Tuesday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $1,747, up $30 for the week.  Gold support is now anticipated at $1,740, then $1,723, and then $1,681 . . . with resistance anticipated at $1,755.50, then $1,768, and then $1,807.

SILVER:
Monex spot silver prices opened the week at $32.00 . . . traded as high as $33.65 on Friday and as low as $31.70 on Tuesday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $32.57, up $.57 for the week.  Silver support is now anticipated at $32.36, then $31.18, and then $29.97 . . . and resistance anticipated at $33.04, then $33.78, and then $35.33.