Gold Closes Above $1,750, Palladium Has a Big Day
Sally Turner | Feb 2, 2012 5:31pm EST | 2min:08sec
Gold and silver were both up today. The main reason was a better-than-expected report from the Labor Department on initial jobless claims.
But the big gainer today was palladium ... which was up 1.4 percent. Palladium is the least expensive of the precious metals but the one that has the most industrial uses. Its main use is in the anti-pollution equipment of cars and trucks. That means that the price of palladium depends on the number of cars and trucks that are getting built. January car sales numbers were released today and they were higher than many experts had expected. Since the beginning of the year palladium has climbed 7.8 percent.
Palladium did well on the stock market too. E-T-F-S Physical Palladium Shares were up more than one percent.
Shares of mining companies that produce gold and silver were higher as well. In late afternoon trading, Newmont Mining climbed two percent and Yamana Gold increased 2.4 percent. IAMGOLD Corporation did even better ... up 3.6 percent. The day's winner ... though ... among big gold mining companies was New Gold ... which was up 4.2 percent with about an hour to go before the closing bell.
Shares of silver mining companies rose too though their gains were ... for a change ... more subdued than those of gold mining companies. The only really big mover among major silver miners was Mag Silver which was up 4.9 percent.
