-- Posted Wednesday, 15 August 2007 | Digg This Article
| Close | Gain/Loss |
Gold | $668.90 | +$0.10 |
Silver | $12.53 | -$0.17 |
XAU | 132.45 | -4.25% |
HUI | 316.33 | -4.29% |
GDM | 982.69 | -4.64% |
JSE Gold | 2288.06 | +1.41% |
USD | 81.86 | +0.37 |
Euro | 134.65 | -0.79 |
Yen | 85.27 | +0.38 |
Oil | $73.20 | +$0.82 |
10-Year | 4.706% | -0.026 |
T-Bond | 109.5625 | -0.25 |
Dow | 12861.47 | -1.29% |
Nasdaq | 2458.83 | -1.61% |
S&P | 1406.70 | -1.39% |
The Metals:
Gold traded slightly lower in Asia and steadily fell in London to see a low of $661.70 by early trade in New York, but it then rocketed over 1% off its low between about 9:45 and 10:30AM EST and found a small gain before it got knocked back down and traded just under unchanged on the day for most of the rest of trade. It was, however, able to edge up at the close and ended with a gain of 0.01%. Silver dropped all the way to $12.30 before it soared about 3% off its low, but it also fell back off from its mid-session rebound and ended with a notable loss of 1.34%.
Euro gold rose over €496, platinum lost $6 to $1,261, palladium lost $4 to $346, and copper fell slightly to about $3.40.
Gold and silver equities steadily fell throughout most of trade and ended with over 4% losses.
The Economy:
Report | For | Reading | Expected | Previous |
CPI | July | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.2% |
Core CPI | July | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
NY Empire State Index | Aug | 25.1 | 19.0 | 26.5 |
Net Foreign Purchases | June | $120.9B | - | $126.1B |
Industrial Production | July | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.5% |
Capacity Utilization | July | 81.9% | 81.7% | 81.7% |
Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 8/11 expected at 315,000, Housing Starts for July expected at 1,405,000, and Building Permits expected at 1,400,000. At 10AM is the Philadelphia Fed survey for August expected at 8.0.
The Markets:
Charts Courtesy of http://finance.yahoo.com/
Oil rose as a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico was upgraded to tropical Storm Erin and landfall is expected along the Texas coast tomorrow, but tropical storm Dean is perhaps of greater concern as it is expected to become a “major hurricane” by Monday and is headed from the Atlantic into the Gulf of Mexico. Also of note today, though certainly a secondary note compared to weather forecasts, were inventory reports which came in worse than expected across the board and encouraged further buying in the energy sector. Crude inventories fell 5.2 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell 1.1 million barrels, distillates built 200,000 barrels, and refinery utilization rose 0.5% to 91.8%.
Short-dated treasuries and the U.S. dollar index continued their recent rises despite dollar losses versus the yen as investors and traders seem to be selling almost everything and moving into cash and bonds due to credit market concerns.
The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P traded mostly higher for much of the day as financials rebounded from recent losses on apparent short covering while the fed added another $7 billion in liquidity, but all three indices fell markedly in the last two hours of trade and ended over 1% lower after rumors surfaced that Countrywide may need to file for bankruptcy due to problems with asset backed commercial paper. That certainly enhanced credit concerns for the entire market and brought the financials right back down to see notable losses along with most of the market.
Among the big names making news in the market today were Countrywide, Nestle, Sara Lee, Heinz, Alcoa, Bay Finance, Sentinel, Bear Sterns and Ford, Whole Foods, and Deere.
The Commentary:
“December Gold finished unchanged at 679.7, 1.5 off the high and 7.2 up from the low.
September Silver closed down 0.193 at 12.555. This was 0.19 up from the low and 0.16 off the high.
The gold market did manage to reject a quasi aggressive selling binge on Wednesday and even managed that action in the face of ongoing Dollar strength. With oil prices mounting a significant rally in the face of impending hurricane traffic, it is possible that the gold market was seeing yet another flight to quality issue moving onto the markets radar. However, the gold market hasn't exactly benefited consistently from flight to quality concerns and it would appear that severe macro economic concerns continue to discourage some would-be buyers of gold. It did seems as if a fresh cash infusion from the Fed provided the gold market with fresh hope that the market might eventually find too much liquidity in the system, but the failure to see inflationary readings from the US CPI report and the ongoing fear of more mortgage problems has seemingly built a cap over gold prices recently.
With a big range down extension in silver on Wednesday, it appeared as if another layer of spec longs were forced from their positions. With the copper and platinum markets remaining up pressure and the Press also noting moderate weakness in tin and lead prices, it was clear that a number of physical commodities were falling from favor. With the most recent production talk in silver coming down in favor of the bear camp, and the headlines mostly devoid of fresh investment talk, one gets the sense that both supply and demand forces are favoring the bear camp.” - The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting
GATA Posts:
You're back to normal, ECB chief tells markets, but they disagree
Ted Butler: Amid the turmoil, a great setup
The Statistics:
As of close of business: 8/14/2007
Gold Warehouse Stocks: | 7,131,738 | - |
Silver Warehouse Stocks: | 134,005,318 | + 61,338 |
Global Gold ETF Holdings
[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]
| Product name | Total Tonnes | Total Ounces | Total Value |
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) AND Singapore Exchange (SGX) | Streettracks Gold Shares | 510.21 | 16,403,846 | US$ 10,962m |
London Stock Exchange (LSE) AND Euronext Paris AND Borsa Italiana AND Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse (Deutsche Börse ) | Gold Bullion Securities | 88.49 | 2,845,013 | US$ 1,903m |
Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) | Gold Bullion Securities | 12.71 | 408,390 | US$ 273m |
Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) | New Gold Debentures | 14.28 | 459,211 | US$ 306m |
Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: The NYSE/SGX added 0.92 tonnes and the LSE subtracted 6.14 tonnes.
COMEX Gold Trust (IAU)
Profile as of 8/14/2007 | |
Total Net Assets | $1,015,915,476 | Ounces of Gold
in Trust | 1,519,696.371 |
Shares Outstanding | 15,350,000 | Tonnes of Gold
in Trust | 47.27 |
Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: 0.77 tonnes were added to the trust.
Silver Trust (SLV)
Profile as of 8/14/2007 | |
Total Net Assets | $1,806,620,574 | Ounces of Silver
in Trust | 141,612,134.500 |
Shares Outstanding | 14,250,000 | Tonnes of Silver
in Trust | 4,404.63 |
Note: No change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data.
The Stocks:
Anatolia’s (ANO.TO) assay results, Newmont’s (NEM) Indonesian investment, Apollo Gold’s (AGT) second quarter results, U.S. Silver’s (USA.V) mine repair progress, Aquiline’s (AQI.TO) metallurgical study work, Revett’s (RVM.TO) resumed mining operations, Endeavour’s (EXK) second quarter highlights, and Silver Standard’s (SSRI) and Esperanza’s (EPZ.V) drill results were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines today.
WINNERS
1. DRDGOLD | DROOD+2.76% $5.58 |
2. Vista Gold | VGZ +0.46% $4.37 |
3. Apex Silver | SIL +0.30% $16.78 |
LOSERS
1. Endeavour | EXK-15.94% $3.85 |
2. Cardero | CDY-12.94% $1.48 |
3. Taseko | TGB-12.40% $4.24 |
Winners & Losers tracks NYSE and AMEX listed gold and silver mining stocks that trade over $1.
All of today's gold and silver stock news:
/R E P E A T/ - International Royalty Corporation - Second Quarter Conference Call - "International Royalty Corporation (TSX: IRC - News; AMEX: ROY - News; the "Company" or "IRC") will host its Second Quarter conference call on Thursday August 16, 2007 at 1:00 PM (EDT)" More
- August 15, 2007 | Item | E-mail
Fortuna Reports Revenue of $8.8 Million, Operating Cash Flow of $3.06 Million and Net Income of $0.95 Million for 2Q 2007 - More
- August 15, 2007 | Item | E-mail
Melkior Resources Inc.: 30.06 g/t Gold at West Timmins - More
- August 15, 2007 | Item | E-mail
Duran Completes $3,707,000 Private Placement - More
- August 15, 2007 | Item | E-mail
Hathor & ESO Enter Into JV Agreement on Carswell Uranium Project - More
- August 15, 2007 | Item | E-mail
Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver Held Mostly Lower For a Third Day Despite More Credit Worries