by Alasdair MacLeod
Gold Money
As our headline chart shows, gold and silver prices fell heavily over the week, with silver crashing relative to gold. The gold/silver ratio now stands at 101.5, pretty much a record.
Gold was down $97 on the week by early morning trade in Europe at $1584, and silver down $1.75 at $15.67. On the year so far, gold is still up by 3.9%, but silver is down 11.3%.
This week saw equity markets crashing. In only three weeks the S&P500 Index had fallen 35% by last night, 9.5% of it yesterday. Bond yields have collapsed in a run to safety, with the 10-year US Treasury bond yield falling to 0.5% on Monday, though it rallied to 0.85% last night. And the dollar’s trade-weighted index hit a low of 94.9, before recovering to 97.9 last night. This is our next chart.