Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold Gains While Silver Surges

The Metals:

Gold dropped to $1732.78 in Asia before it climbed up to $1751.40 in London and then fell back to $1739.84 by about 10AM EST, but it then bounced back higher midday and ended with a gain of 0.27%. Silver slipped to $33.118 in Asia, but it then climbed to as high as $34.004 in New York and ended with a gain of 1.66%.

Euro gold fell to about €1327, platinum gained $36.50 to $1619, and copper rose 4 cents to about $3.83.

Gold and silver equities traded mostly slightly higher and ended mixed.

The Economy:

Fed Bank Presidents Reveal Assets From Ranchland to Inflation-Linked Bonds Bloomberg

Obama Plans Assistance for Rentals, Refis Bloomberg

Jobs Increase as Health Care Eclipses Factories Bloomberg

Gross: Low Rates Signaling Birth of Austerity Bloomberg

Mortgage applications dipped last week: MBA Reuters

Obama calls for $5-10 billion for home refinancing Reuters

Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 1/28 expected at 375,000, fourth quarter Productivity expected at 0.7%, and Unit Labor Costs expected at 0.7%.

The Markets:

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

Oil fell after the Energy Information Administration reported that crude inventories rose 4.2 million barrels, gasoline inventories rose 3.0 million barrels, and distillates fell 100,000 barrels.

The U.S. dollar index fell as the euro rose on renewed optimism that Greece will reach a debt deal.

Treasuries fell as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose on decent manufacturing data in the US, the U.K., Germany, China, and India.

Among the big names making news in the market today were GM, Amazon, Facebook, and Chrysler.

The Commentary:

“Gold bulls breached resistance at $1750 but have been unable to keep the market ABOVE that price. That will be necessary for them to set up a run towards $1775- $1780 where a major upside resistance level is located.

There is a bit of weakness in Euro Gold today which is coming off of the rather large rally in the Euro in today's session. That rally sent the Dollar down below critical support at the 79 level on the USDX but that market has rebounded back above 79 thus far. A close below 78.80 should set the Dollar up for a drop towards 78.

It is indeed fascinating to watch this shifting back and forth between risk trades and risk aversion trades as one headline after another takes precedence in the minds of traders. Today, European debt fears have temporarily taken a back seat and that has allowed Dollar bears to pressure the market. It has also sent the long bond careening lower off the top of that three month trading range that I mentioned in yesterday's comments.

Crude oil weakness is limiting the CCI and preventing it from pushing up to 600 in spite of the sharp fall in the Dollar. Natural gas, after giving us all a big head fake higher last week, has resumed moving lower and is once again threatening to close in on that major low made on the day that Chesapeake announced some production cuts. If the market fails there, we could see nat gas moving all the way to 2.00. This warm winter combined with huge storage overhang, it giving consumers one helluva deal on their heating needs this year and will likely do so for cooling needs this summer at this point unless we see some serious cuts on the supply side.

Copper continues floating higher on this sea of liquidity but will need to something on the demand side due to economic activity to push through $4.00. Right now it is all speculative interest playing it from the long side due to the zero interest rate environment. In other words, the Fed's gambit will result in higher costs for electrical wiring for homebuilders and other manufacturing interests down the road. In this sort of free money environment, it is very difficult to gauge how much of the "demand" coming into these markets is genuinely due to demand for the physical product versus demand coming from hot money chasing risk assets. The danger comes when or if the latter demand source dries up due to some extraneous event setting up the real possibility of extremely sharp drops in price as this hot money goes washing out of the market en masse.”- Dan Norcini, More at http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

GATA Posts:

UN offers second link to US-UK gold swap treaty

Gold better for diversification than commodities, Hinde Capital says

US-UK gold swap treaty disappears from UN Internet site, reappears at GATA's

The Statistics:

Activity from: 1/31/2012

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: 176.10: +1.47 change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 9,608.95: No change from yesterday’s data.

The Miners:

Timberline’s (TLR) new Vice-President of Exploration, Golden Star’s (GSS) restarted plant, Jaguar’s (JAG) fourth quarter update, United Silver’s (USC.TO) completed financing, and Silver Bull’s (SVBL) drill results 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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