Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Near Unchanged

The Metals:

Gold climbed $27.50 to as high as $1641.60 by a little after 5AM EST before it fell to see a $7.86 loss at $1606.24 by about 10AM EST, but it then bounced back higher into the close and ended with a gain of 0.12%.Silver surged to as high as $30.194 before it fell back to $29.128, but it also bounced back higher in late trade and ended with a loss of just 0.58%.

Euro gold rose to about €1239, platinum lost $3.80 to $1423.70, and copper climbed a few cents to about $3.39.

Gold and silver equities traded mostly slightly lower and ended near unchanged.

The Economy:

Foreclosure sales still pummeling home prices Yahoo

Mortgage applications eased last week: MBA Reuters

ECB lends banks $639 billion over 3 years Yahoo

Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 12/17 expected at 380,000 and third quarter GDP expected at 2.0%.The GDP Deflator is expected at 2.5%.At 9:55 is Michigan Sentiment for December expected at 68.0, and at 10AM are Leading Economic Indicators for November expected at 0.3%.

The Markets:

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

Oil rose after the Energy Information Administration reported that crude inventories fell 10.6 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell 400,000 barrels, and distillates rose 2.4 million barrels.

Treasuries fell after today’s $29 billion 7-year note auction sold at a high yield of 1.43% with a bid to cover of 2.68.

The U.S. dollar index rose as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P traded mostly slightly lower on waning optimism about the ECB’s lending plan, but the major indices did see some strength late in the day and the Dow and S&P ended with slight gains while the Nasdaq remained lower on disappointing results from Oracle.

“The European Central Bank loaned a massive euro489 billion ($639 billion) to 523 banks for an exceptionally long period of three years to steady a financial system that is under pressure from the eurozone debt crisis.

It was the biggest ECB infusion of credit into the banking system in the 13-year history of the shared euro currency.

Wednesday's loans surpassed the euro442 billion ($578 billion) in one-year loans from June, 2009, when the financial system was reeling from the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The ECB is trying to make sure that banks have enough ready cash so they can keep on lending to businesses. Otherwise, a credit crunch could choke off growth and spread the debt crisis to the wider economy through the banks.”

Among the big names making news in the market Friday were Walgreen, BofA, Fortress, Tokio Marine and Delphi Financial Group, and Oracle.

GATA Posts:

Lawrence Williams: Gold the protector as democracies move toward totalitarianism

The Statistics:

Activity from: 12/20/2011

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

Note: No change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data.

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) Total Tonnes in Trust: 172.52: +0.15 change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 9,698.04: No change from yesterday’s data.

The Miners:

Claude’s (CGR drill results, Comstock’s (LODE) Financial Management Team, New Gold’s (NGD) completed acquisition, Banro’s (BBA) mine update, Tanzanian Royalty’s (TRX) assay results, Midway’s (MDW) filed NI 43-101 technical report, Brigus Gold’s (BRD) fourth quarter update, IAMGOLD’s (IAG) agreement in principle to expand the Rosebel Gold Mine, Rob McEwen’s letter to shareholders, Coeur’s (CDE) injunction, and Hecla’s (HL) mine update and production estimate were among the 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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• http://www.capitalupdates.com
• http://www.goldseek.com
• http://www.silverseek.com
• http://www.goldreview.com

©Gold Seeker 2011

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