(Kitco News) – While gold, silver, and platinum prices are each challenging key resistance on Monday morning, all three precious metals are showing signs of near-term tops in some areas of the market, according to precious metals analysts at Heraeus.
In their latest precious metals update, the analysts wrote that demand data from global mints suggests physical gold investment demand is now dropping.
“Sales of bullion from the US and Perth Mints have shrunk over the last few months, indicating that physical investors are feeling the gold price may have run out of steam,” they said. “Sales of gold coins from the US Mint have fallen from 63.5 koz in January to just 7.5 koz in May, while Perth Mint bullion sales are down 45% year-on-year so far this year, at 190 koz.”
They noted that ETF inflows have also cooled in recent weeks after an exceptionally strong start to 2025. “Holdings grew by 397 tonnes to the end of June, taking total global ETF holdings to 3,616 tonnes – a multi-year high (source: World Gold Council), but were negative in May, and much lower in June as Asian fund inflows all but ceased,” the analysts said.
“Although the gold price has been stalled below $3,500/oz since the end of April, a number of key drivers are still in place that could be conducive to further gains during the rest of the year,” they wrote. “Central banks are still consistently buying gold, including the People’s Bank of China which added 7 tonnes to reserves in June, and the outlook for the dollar is still for further weakening, despite traders paring expectations for fewer rate cuts this year as US CPI came in hot last week. With these drivers still in place, and global ETF holdings still far below their record high, there is potentially still room for investors to increase holdings further, should gold break out above $3,500/oz.”
Spot gold is seeing a strong start to the week with prices breaking through resistance at $3,400 just after 10:30 am EDT, and last trading at $3,400.81 per ounce for a gain of 1.51% on the session.
Turning to silver, Heraeus analysts said the overall silver jewelry market is struggling amid the gray metal’s price rally.
“Pandora, one of the world’s largest jewellery brands, is guiding revenue growth of 7-8% in 2025 to ~$5.3 billion,” they wrote. “Pandora’s charms segment (72% of revenue) is made up of sterling (92.5%) silver. The company manufactures all of its jewellery in Thailand, which after India is the nation with the second-largest silver jewellery fabrication industry. In 2024, Thai silver jewellery fabrication demand reached 25.1 moz, a five-year high, and is forecast to rise by 3% year-on-year in 2025 to nearly 26 moz (source: The Silver Institute). Silver jewellery exports from Thailand support the narrative of robust demand and are up 26% year-to-date (January-May).”
“Pandora’s revenue growth is unevenly distributed around the world,” they noted. “The US (its largest market) saw 11% year-on-year growth in Q1’25. However, revenue shrank in the other major markets of China, Italy and France. Trump’s latest round of reciprocal tariff announcements includes a 36% duty on Thai goods (including jewellery), which poses a significant risk to silver demand linked to Pandora sales if these tariffs come into force as planned from 1 August. Despite some bright spots, global silver jewellery fabrication demand is expected to see an overall decline this year, led by the Indian market (42% of global total). High silver prices are likely to crimp demand in India, where consumers can be very price sensitive. Already this year, Indian imports of unfabricated silver are 50% lower than in 2024 (January-May), suggesting that domestic demand is slowing following the 27% year-to-date gain in the price.”
In contrast with gold, the silver price rose marginally this week. A 0.16% gain led to a close of $38.24/oz.
Silver prices are on the verge of breaking back above $39 per ounce in early North American trading. At the time of writing, spot silver last traded at $38.948 per ounce and is up 2.05% on the daily chart.
And on the platinum front, Heraeus noted that the latest indicators show a very tight market.
“Implied lease rates for borrowing physical platinum rose again last week, indicating that there is less liquidity in parts of the market,” they said. “Part of what may be driving this is a geographic misalignment of stocks and demand. Platinum was rushed across the Atlantic from London to the US starting late last year (before beginning to be repatriated more recently) and Chinese imports have grown year-to-date, which has concentrated the available stock of platinum, making it potentially more difficult to procure locations where end-users would lease metal. Rather than the global physical market becoming yet tighter, it is possible this dynamic is a key contributor to the sky-high lease rates of late. Helping to offset tightness until last week, platinum ETFs also liquidated 285 koz of holdings since the platinum price first reached $1,300/oz.”
The analysts noted that South African data for May confirmed that the country’s PGM supply has begun to recover to more normal levels after a very poor performance over the first few months of the year. “Following weaker production in H1’25, South African platinum supply is forecast to be a little below 3.9 moz this year,” they said.
Platinum prices are also seeing a strong push higher on Monday morning, with the spot price topping out at $1,499.362 15 minutes after the North American open before pulling back slightly.
Spot platinum last traded at $1,481.11 per ounce for a gain of 2.57% on the session.
