Silver Market Morning

Gold Today – The gold price closed at $1,276.90 on Friday up $3.10 in New York. In Asia and London the price rose another $5 ahead of the Fix, where it was set at $1,281 .75 up $8.75 and in the euro at €947.339 up €9.171, while the euro stood weaker at $1.3529. Ahead of the opening in New York the gold price was trading at $1,280.30 and in the euro at €946.28.

Silver Today – The silver price closed at $19.70 up 14 cents, in New York. Ahead of New York’s opening, silver was trading at $19.72.

Gold _{(very short-term)}

Gold should move up to tackle the next level of overhead resistance, in New York today.

Silver _{(very short-term)}

Silver should move up to tackle the next level of overhead resistance, in New York today.

Price Drivers

There were no sales or purchases from the SPDR gold ETF in the U.S. on Friday, but there were small purchases into the Gold Trust. The holdings of the gold ETFs continue to stand at 787.076 tonnes in the SPDR gold ETF but at 163.20 up 0.73 of a tonne, in the Gold Trust.

The gold and silver prices are ‘drifting higher’ a process that started last week. Once again the battle of $1,300 is coming up again. On the physical demand from, Indian demand has picked up, no doubt ahead of the potential easing of gold import restrictions in the Indian budget. We are seeing strongly rising demand from there even ahead of the coming budget at this unseasonal time of the year for gold.

With 20% of annual demand for gold coming from the Middle East last year, when the region was ‘relatively’ peaceful, the spreading sectarian war in the Middle East is spurring rising demand at individual level and at central bank level. The Iraqi central bank has increased its reserves to 90 tonnes in the last two months. Did they know something we didn’t? Ostensibly this was to boost the credibility of the local currency internationally. With its 3 million barrels a day oil production under threat, we can understand why the government feels it needs gold to give the currency international credibility. We expect this to continue, particularly because religious issues are now a top priority there, not politics. This makes a U.S. or international political solution unworkable until the religious issue is resolved. We can only see the religious issue worsening from now on. Gold has to be the beneficiary from all of this, because gold is trusted by enemies of all kinds, whereas confidence in [political] national currencies evaporates. With the U.S. having its vital interests in the oil of the region, some of those countries would not want to use the $, because of U.S.’ absolute control over the currency globally. We have already seen the U.S. control its use in the region. We forecast these issues will rise in importance from now on and impact gold, silver, currencies the oil price and oil supplies globally! [Avoid Govn’t confiscation; www.Stockbridgemgmt.com subscribe to www.GoldForecaster.com and visit www.Stockbridgemgmt.com to protect yourself from penalties from holding your gold overseas when it is to be confiscated].

Silver – Silver is showing more pent-up strength now. [www.SilverForecaster.com]

Regards,

Julian D.W. Phillips for the Gold & Silver Forecasters