Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold Falls Slightly While Silver Surges Over 3%

The Metals:

Gold fell over 2% to as low as $1522.60 by about 7AM EST, but it then rallied back higher throughout most of trade in New York and ended with a loss of just 0.55%.Silver slipped all the way to $26.15 before it also rallied back higher in New York and ended with a gain of 3.07%.

Euro gold fell to about €1193, platinum lost $7.20 to $1369.30, and copper rose slightly to about $3.37.

Gold and silver equities opened up about 1.5% lower, but they then rallied back higher for most of the rest of trade and ended with about 2% gains.

The Economy:

There are no major economic reports due out tomorrow.

The Markets:

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

Oil fell after the Energy Information Administration reported that crude inventories rose 3.9 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell 700,000 barrels, and distillates rose 1.2 million barrels, but it then turned back higher in late trade and ended with a slight gain on worries about Iran.

The U.S. dollar index erased early gains and ended slightly lower on Italy’s somewhat successful bond auction that sent the euro modestly higher.

Treasuries fell as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose on decent economic data and relative calm in Europe.

“Italy auctioned 7 billion euros ($9 billion) of debt to bring the total raised this week to almost 20 billion euros, underscoring how the European Central Bank is helping the world’s fourth-biggest borrower tap markets.

Today’s sale by the Treasury in Rome fell short of the 8.5 billion-euro target even as borrowing costs declined from last month. Italy sold 9 billion euros in bills yesterday at about half the rate of the previous sale last month in its first auction since the ECB loaned 489 billion euros to banks to ease credit amid the region’s debt crisis.”

Among the big names making news in the market today were Verizon, Alibaba, and Yahoo.

The Commentary:

“Silver has become the victim of the deflationary mindset trade with RISK AVERSION leading to a significant outflow of speculative money from the grey metal. I have said repeatedly that Silver will not go anywhere as long as INFLATIONARY FEARS are NOT foremost in traders' minds.

Note the following Gold/Silver ratio chart which details this exact thing. This ratio began moving in favor of Silver only after the Federal Reserve first announced and then began its Quantitative Easing programs back in late 2008. You can see the line beginning a steady decline as Silver appreciated at a faster rate than Gold during rallies as well as holding its losses to a minimum compared to the Yellow Metal during any setbacks in prices for both metals.

Not until the Fed confirmed the ending of the QE2 program and traders began worrying about a slowdown in the amount of liquidity being supplied to the markets did this ratio begin to reverse and move in favor of gold. Another way of saying this is that during any sort of DEFLATIONARY mindset, gold will hold its value much better than silver, which is still being viewed as a risk asset instead of as a monetary metal by the bigger players.

As the line of the ratio now advances, one can see that as long as traders are concerned over a slowdown in overall economic growth, whether from conditions in Europe or even from a slowdown in Chinese growth to a lesser degree, the trend is higher for this ratio.

Not until or unless the trading community becomes convinced that concerted Central Bank activity to supply further additional liquidity is imminent, will this ratio reverse and Silver begin to outperform gold to the upside once again.“- Dan Norcini, More at http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

GATA Posts:

Peter Grant: Gold near-term outlook 2012

Citing 'financial repression,' FT's Gillian Tett sounds like Jim Rickards and Rob Kirby

Resource Clips does comprehensive interview with GATA Chairman Murphy

The Statistics:

Activity from: 12/28/2011

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: No change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 9,605.79: No change from yesterday’s data.

The Miners:

Lake Shore’s (LSG) technical report and Newmont’s (NEM) project in Peru 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

- Would you like to receive the Free Daily Gold Seeker Report in your e-mail? Click here

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 2011

Note: This article may be reproduced provided the article, in full, is used and mention to Gold-Seeker.com is given.

Disclosure:The owner, editor, writer and publisher and their associates are not responsible for errors or omissions.The author of this report is not a registered financial advisor.Readers should not view this material as offering investment related advice. Gold-Seeker.com has taken precautions to ensure accuracy of information provided. Information collected and presented are from what is perceived as reliable sources, but since the information source(s) are beyond Gold-Seeker.com’s control, no representation or guarantee is made that it is complete or accurate.The reader accepts information on the condition that errors or omissions shall not be made the basis for any claim, demand or cause for action.Past results are not necessarily indicative of future results.Any statements non-factual in nature constitute only current opinions, which are subject to change.Nothing contained herein constitutes a representation by the publisher, nor a solicitation for the purchase or sale of securities & therefore information, nor opinions expressed, shall be construed as a solicitation to buy or sell any stock, futures or options contract mentioned herein.Investors are advised to obtain the advice of a qualified financial & investment advisor before entering any financial transaction.