Virtual Gold Investment Conference: February 22, 2007 Featured Speakers: James Turk, Julian Phillips, Peter Schiff & Bill Murphy Featured Companies: Canarc Resource Corp., Gold Resource Corp., Sunridge Gold Corp. & Buffalo Gold Ltd.

The Metals:

Gold traded $1-$3 higher for most of trade in Asia and London before it came into New York near unchanged and then fell for the rest of the morning to as low as $662.90 at one point, but it then rebounded in afternoon trade and ended with a loss of just 0.09%.  Silver rose to over $14.00 in London before it dropped to $13.82 in late morning New York trade, but it also rebounded into the close and ended unchanged on the day.

Euro gold remained just under €510, platinum gained $2 to $1,208, palladium lost $4 to $338, and copper rose about 7 cents to above $2.60.

Gold and silver equities remained near unchanged in morning trade, but they then rallied higher in afternoon trade and ended with about 1% gains.

Gold demand up 6% in Q4 on investment, jewelry Mining Weekly

US gold futures retrace losses to end a tad lower Reuters

Gold futures close lower after two-session win  MarketWatch

Gold Falls on Metal's Reduced Appeal as Hedge Against Inflation  Bloomberg

The Economy:

Net Foreign Purchases came in at the lowest since January 2002 and came nowhere near to covering December’s trade deficit of $61.2 billion.  The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index rose to 40 from 35 in January to offset the day’s mostly economically disappointing data.

Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Housing Starts for January expected at 1,600,000, Building Permits expected at 1,590,000, PPI for January expected at -0.6%, and Core PPI expected at 0.2%.  At 10AM is Michigan Sentiment for February expected at 96.5.

The Markets:

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

Oil dropped over a dollar in early trade on warm weather forecasts, but it rallied back higher and ended near unchanged after OPEC revised its demand forecast higher.

The U.S. dollar index fell and treasuries rose again as mostly poor economic data pushed interest rates lower.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose modestly as economic data made it more likely that the fed will keep interests rates unchanged.

Among the big names making news in the market today were Bear Stearns, Molson Coors, Biogen, General Motors and Chrysler, and Hershey.

Timberline Resources Corp. [OTC-BB: TBLC] Upside Through Discovery • Record Revenues - Drilling Services

The Commentary:

“*The increasingly desperate Gold Cartel (I sent them their "Desperation Cologne" for Valentine’s Day, as planned) does not have enough available central bank gold at the moment to meet the enormous supply/demand deficit. They are scrambling and buying time by hitting gold in the derivatives markets to keep the price from exploding.

*Demand is very firm at these levels, perhaps increasing spec interest in anticipation of a US move on Iran. That said, today’s sharp drop in the price of oil ($59 per barrel, off $1.06) showed no such concern.

*Outside market factors such as rising oil and a weakening dollar have been generally supportive at times. Although, since gold’s move of $66 off its low at the beginning of the year, NEITHER have done anything price-wise (net change that is).” - From yesterday’s Midas report by Bill Murphy of LemetropoleCafe.com

“April Gold finished down 0.6 at 671.4, 2.8 off the high and 4.9 up from the low.

March Silver closed down 0.003 at 13.962. This was 0.132 up from the low and 0.068 off the high.

The gold market started out positive but then seemed to fade in the wake of soft US economic numbers and moderate weakness in oil prices. Certainly the gold market was underpinned by the favorable World Gold Council demand figures, but the trade was also talking up the fact that short term technical indicators were becoming overdone and there were stories in the Press hinting at a desire to bank some profits ahead of a long weekend. In the end weakness in the Dollar seemed to mitigate the selling pressure flowing from the energy complex, but with the US numbers generally slack, it is possible that some gold bulls might be losing interest. The headline story that world gold demand rose by 6% over the prior year will probably echo around the globe overnight and that could provide some countervailing force to the Thursday afternoon profit taking.

While the silver market remains tightly correlated to the gold market, it seemed as if silver managed to defend against outside market pressure better than the gold market in the action Thursday. As suggested in the mid day coverage, ongoing strength in the copper market might have helped the silver market downplay the continued softening of US economic numbers. However, the silver bulls can point to the fact that the New York Fed manufacturing data was much stronger than expected and therefore one can't totally conclude that the US economy is definitively slowing down.” - The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

GATA sympathizers invited to lunch in Melbourne

China doesn't seem to see an end to commodities boom

John Embry: Great performance of gold, silver is practically a secret

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 2/14/2007

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

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

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU)

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

Silver Trust (SLV)

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

The Stocks:

IAMGOLD’s (IAG) restarting production at Rosebel, Kimber’s (KBX) project update, UC Resources’ (UC.V) production update, Silver Wheaton’s (SLW) restated US GAAP reconciliation note, and Apogee’s (APE.V) drilling were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines today.

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