Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold and Silver Gain Almost 3% and 7% on the Week

The Metals:

Gold rose a few dollars to $1782.85 in Asia before it fell back to $1770.60 in New York, but it then bounced back higher in late trade and ended with a loss of just 0.42%.Silver surged to $35.707 in Asia before if fell back to $35.185 by a little after 8AM EST, but it then bounced back higher in New York and ended unchanged on the day.

Euro gold fell to about €1316, platinum lost $14.50 to $1708, and copper gained 6 cents to about $3.86.

Gold and silver equities traded mostly slightly lower and ended with modest losses.

The Economy:

Geithner Says He’s Confident Volcker Rule to Allow Market-Making Bloomberg

Chart: 'America’s Per Capita Government Debt Worse Than Greece' The Weekly Standard

All of this week’s other economic reports:

Next week’s economic highlights include Pending Home Sales on Monday, Durable Goods Orders, the Case-Shiller 20-city Index, and Consumer Confidence on Tuesday, GDP, Chicago PMI, and the fed’s Beige Book on Wednesday, and Initial Jobless Claims, Personal Income and Spending, Core PCE Prices, the ISM Index, and Construction Spending on Thursday.

The Markets:

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

Oil rose to a new nine month high on continued concerns that Iran may stop some oil exports.

The U.S. dollar index fell as the euro climbed to a new three month high on optimism about next week’s liquidity operation by the European Central Bank.

Treasuries rose on worries about the economic impact of higher oil prices that kept the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P near unchanged.

Among the big names making news in the market Friday were J.C. Penney, Apple, Kenneth Cole, Clearwire, and Citigroup.

The Commentary:

“The following chart is a weekly graph of the price of unleaded gasoline showing some lines that detail areas where both resistance and support can be identified.

As you can clearly see, the price has rallied some 70 cents since the end of last year without hardly a pause. It is currently closing in on a very important chart inflection point which is just shy of the $3.20 level. Based strictly on technical analysis and nothing fundamental, if this market pushes past that point (notice it is knocking right on the door of the lower line of the pitchfork - which is where it can be expected to encounter selling pressure), then not only will it have bested upsloping resistance but it will also have taken out horizontal resistance coming in near that level as well.

That would give us a technical signal that this market is going to make a run towards the all-time high. I wish to emphasize again, that we are nowhere near the peak driving demand season for gasoline which generally coincides with the advent of the Memorial Day holiday.

Gasoline is obviously pricing in a risk premium in an attempt to pre-emptively ration supply fearing a drop in oil shipments out of the Middle East should tensions with Iran further ramp up. However, this rally began prior to such fears initially moving higher in anticipation of a near zero interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve and additional liquidity being supplied by the Central Banks of the West. Even China was not left out of the equation with many traders suspecting that the Chinese would lower interest rates or reduce bank reserve ratio requirements as they indeed did.

What to bring away from all this? Simple - get ready for the very real prospect of all time high prices at the gasoline pump this summer.

By the way, Newt Gingrich has an outstanding presentation at his website for bringing down gasoline prices, permanently, and for sharply reducing American dependence on imported oil. Check it out.

http://www.newt.org/news/newt-2012-announces-first-air-dates-of-30-minute-address-on-american-energy/

Also, if you did not get a chance to see the current President's logic-challenged speech on US energy yesterday, relax; you spared yourself a great deal of mental anguish trying to follow his convoluted thinking. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent take on that speech which is also worth reading. You can find that at the following link: It is entitled, "Stupid and Oil Prices". I especially liked the fact that the writer brought up the pernicious effect of the Fed's near zero interest rate policy on the price of energy, and commodities as a whole. It was and is a very insightful read.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577241623995642182.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Take a look at what has been happening to the Commodity Complex as illustrated by the CCI. The index has been in a downtrending pattern since it peaked late last spring. It is however showing some definite signs of bottoming and what is more, possibly begin a trending move higher (remember that a market can bottom without necessarily embarking on an uptrending move higher - it can merely go sideways).

The first solid chance of seeing such a thing would be an index close above the horizontal blue line noted on the chart. Upside follow through that takes out the lower upsloping red line would be then very bullish activity.”- Dan Norcini, More at http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

GATA Posts:

EU creditor countries poised to micromanage Greece

In search of the 'gold bubble' in Palm Springs

Leniency sought in sentencing of Liberty Dollar founder

Solari's guide to reporting foreign financial holdings

The Statistics:

Activity from: 2/23/2012

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: SPDR added 1.209 tonnes.

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) Total Tonnes in Trust: 180.12: No change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 9,632.52: +61.95 change from yesterday’s data.

The Miners:

Newmont’s (NEM) fourth-quarter loss, Eldorado (EGO) 2011 results, and Gold Resource’s (GORO) dividend were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines Friday.

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

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