New Year, New Price Levels

2010 was a gangbuster year for the precious metals – gold gained some 28% in the twelve months just past, while silver added a whopping 79%. Palladium was the overall winner for the year, breaking the $800 mark for the first time this century, up some 89% in 2010. Platinum was the laggard, up some 17% for the year.

Call it sector inflation, or the fear factor born of quantitative easing, or a flight to safety, but the entire precious metals group had a bang-up year in 2010. Physical off-take was brisk worldwide, as metals continued to find new homes in private hands.

Silver was the headline story for 2010, especially in the US where the Mint cranked out over 34 million silver Eagles, a whopping 20% production gain over 2009’s figures.

Despite new record prices for gold, and increased investment in the yellow metal worldwide, US retail gold bullion sales were not as robust as in 2009. Gold bullion takes many different forms in different parts of the world, but a good indicator of US investor interest is reflected in the production figures of the US Mint’s popular gold Eagles. Sales of gold Eagles in 2010 were down some 15% from 2009's levels.