Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Modestly Lower

The Metals:

Gold fell to as low as $1661.40 by about 9AM EST before it bounced back higher midday, but it still ended with a loss of 0.71%.Silver slipped to $31.874 before it also rebounded, but it still ended with a loss of 0.93%.

Euro gold fell to about €1279, platinum lost $16.40 to $1542.60, and copper rose slightly to about $3.80/

Gold and silver equities fell about 2% at the open and remained near that level for the rest of the day.

The Economy:

Fed seen indicating no rate hikes until 2014 Reuters

Pariahs No More, U.S. Bankers Ascend at Davos Bloomberg

IMF Cuts Global Growth Forecast; Sees Recession Bloomberg

Obama to make pitch for second term in State of the Union Reuters

There were no major economic reports today.Tonight at 9PM EST is the State of the Union speech.Tomorrow at 10AM EST brings Pending Home Sales for December expected at -3.0% and at 12:30 is a FOMC Rate Decision.

The Markets:

Charts Courtesy of http://finance.yahoo.com/

Oil fell as the U.S. dollar index rose on renewed worries about the ability to come up with a debt deal for Greece.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P traded mostly slightly lower on worries about Europe and tomorrow’s fed meeting.

Debt prices fall in push for auction concessions Reuters

Among the big names making news in the market today were Verizon, Morgan Stanley, J&J, McDonald’s, and DuPont.

The Commentary:

“Barrick Gold was downgraded this morning to sector perform by some of the "analysts" citing concerns over delays and cost escalations at new mines under construction. Tie that in with weakness in both gold and silver, which ran into long liquidation and some fresh selling after failing to better the chart resistance levels noted yesterday, and that has resulted in the HUI sinking down to the bottom of a critical support level on the price chart once again.

The gold shares in general are becoming dogs that cannot hunt or in the case of some, not even bark.

The same hedge funds that have been buying them down at this level late last year and early this year had better not have a change of heart. Still, it is only Tuesday so they do have time to recover before the end of the week. They will certainly need to or we are going to see a technical chart breakdown.

Pressure in gold and silver today is coming from a slightly stronger Dollar and some increased chatter over Greece and woes associated with that running sore. Traders are a bit hesitant to get too aggressive on the risk trades as a result and are exercising a bit of caution. That is allowing for some long liquidation and fresh short sellers from top pickers.

Silver stills need to get a solid close ABOVE $32.50 to avoid sagging here while gold needs to close over $1680 to avoid a setback towards $1650.

Bonds, a good measurement of the willingness of traders to take on risk, are basically flat today reflecting the lack of conviction either way for today's session. We'll see what we get in tomorrow's session which should be more telling as to where we might head next.

Note on the following HUI chart that all of the major moving averages are trending lower. We need the shorter term ones to at least stop heading lower and flatten out if the HUI is going to attract any sort of momentum based chart buying in the gold sector.”- Dan Norcini, More at http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

GATA Posts:

Warsh speech on 'financial repression' to be broadcast at Stanford's Internet site

Resource Clips interview with GATA: No more tinfoil hats

The Statistics:

Activity from: 1//2012

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: SPDR subtracted 5.139 tonnes.

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) Total Tonnes in Trust: 174.03: No change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 9,516.75: No change from yesterday’s data.

The Miners:

Banro’s (BAA) Updated Economic Assessment, Randgold’s (GOLD) gold production, Gold Fields’ (GFI) possible JV, Endeavour Silver’s (EXK) review of the Company's exploration results in 2011 and its exploration plans for 2012, and First Majestic’s (AG) mill expansion and construction update were among big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines today.

WINNERS

LOSERS

Winners & Losers tracks NYSE and AMEX listed gold and silver mining stocks that trade over $1.

Please see Yahoo’s Mining/Metals News Wire for all of today’s mining news.

- Chris Mullen, Gold Seeker Report

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Additional Resources for today’s Gold Seeker Report can be found:

• http://www.capitalupdates.com
• http://www.goldseek.com
• http://www.silverseek.com
• http://www.goldreview.com

©Gold Seeker 2012

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