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-- Posted Thursday, 24 January 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold held yesterday’s after hours access gains and traded near $890 in Asia before it began to add to its gains in London and rose to as high as $910.30 by about 9:30AM EST in New York.  It then fell back off slightly into the close, but it still ended with a 2.51% gain at a new record closing high and came within $3 of its intraday high of $914.30 set on January 14^th.  In today’s after hours access session gold has climbed to as high as $913.20 at the time of writing.

Silver remained near $16 in Asia and rose to as high as $16.44 by about 9:30AM EST in New York before it also fell back off slightly into the close, but it still ended with a gain of 2.85% and just 4 cents from its 27 year closing high set on January 14^th.

Euro gold rose to about €615, platinum gained $56 or 3.61% to $1606 to a new record high, palladium gained $6 to $370, and copper rose roughly 8 cents to about $3.20.

Gold and silver equities rose over 4% in early trade and climbed even further in afternoon trade to close with about 5% gains and end roughly 5% away from new all-time highs.

The Economy:

Also making economic news today was a tentative deal reached on the details of the roughly $140 billion economic stimulus package that includes “tax rebates for families and incentives for business investment.”  Of note is an increase in the conforming loan limit which means Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can finance larger mortgages which in turn will lower mortgage rates for loans of up to $730,000.  There are no major economic reports due out tomorrow.

The Markets:

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

Oil rose after today’s inventory reports and then rose further after some details of the economic stimulus plan were released and raised future demand expectations.  Oil inventories rose 2.3 million barrels, gasoline inventories rose 5.0 million barrels, distillates fell 1.3 million barrels, and natural gas stocks fell 155 billion cubic feet.

The U.S. dollar index fell markedly and the euro rose strongly after comments from European Central Bank council member Axel Weber made it pretty clear that the ECB will not follow the fed in cutting interest rates.  Weber noted that the fed’s recent 75 basis point cut to 3.5% “had not shifted the ECB focus on euro zone inflation.”  Strong German Business Confidence data and more poor U.S. housing data also helped the euro outperform the dollar.

Treasuries fell substantially as markets calmed down a bit and expectations changed closer to a fed rate cut of 50 basis points next week rather than yesterday’s outlook for a cut of 75 basis points.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P traded mostly modestly higher as the markets remained relatively calm in light volume compared to earlier in the week.

Among the big names making news in the market today were the bond insurers after a SCA downgrade, SocGen after a fraud announcement resulting in a $7.1 billion loss, AT&T, Lockheed, Xerox, Hershey, and Bank of America.

The Commentary:

“February Gold finished up 22.7 at 905.8, 5.2 off the high and 5.8 up from the low.

March Silver closed up 0.363 at 16.333. This was 0.078 up from the low and 0.177 off the high.

The gold market action on Thursday ended up being a rather impressive move with the April gold contract at times reaching nearly $65 an ounce above the low from early in the week. Certainly seeing renewed weakness in the US Dollar served to shift the currency impact on gold prices back into a positive, but one also got the sense that the gold trade was equally cheered by the improvement in global economic sentiment. Furthermore, seeing the Bank of Canada hint at the prospect of further rate cuts seemed to give the positive global economic outlook an additional boost. It is possible that new all time highs in platinum added to the bullish psychology in gold and with a host of physical commodities like oil, grains and soft commodities all in an upward motion the impact of a little economic optimism was certainly being felt across a wide range of markets.

The silver market clearly seemed to respect the even number zone of $16.00 in the March contract early in the session and then managed to rise in sync with the rest of the metals markets. Clearly an improvement in economic psychology provided a number of markets with a lift on Thursday and surprisingly most the gains were forged without an overly aggressive upside extension in equity prices. Given the fresh round of new highs in platinum prices, the strength in gold prices and the sharp gains in copper prices, silver appeared to be getting buying interest from both physical and financial themes.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

Just another day with the big banks

Regulators coerce big banks to bail out bond insurers

Where were these worthies when everybody was making magic money?

Sovereign wealth funds seen saving U.S., U.K. 'financial structure'

Rick Ackerman: PPT emerges from the shadows

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 1/24/2008

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

 Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: StreetTRACKS added 7.68 tonnes.

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:

Paramount’s (PZG) drill results, Royal Gold’s (RGLD) agreement to acquire royalty interests from AngloGold (AU), Exeter’s (XRA) second drill, Revett’s (RVM.TO) updated reserve estimates, Minco’s (MSV.TO) award, ECU’s (ECU.TO) updated resource estimate, Bear Creek’s (BCM.V) resource estimate, and Silvermex’s (SMR.V) appointed auditor were among the 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.

All of today's gold and silver stock news:

Premier-Roxmark intersect primary target in Geraldton - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Golden Goose hits 16.88 g/t platinum over 0.50 metres in a 3.5-metre zone at its Lac Levac property - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Detour Gold shares soar on drill results, M&A talk - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Toronto Star prints correction regarding Armistice Resources - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Tara Gold Resources Announces High Grade Gold and Silver Results From the First Holes in Its San Miguel Vein in Mexico - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

GoldSpring, Inc. Receives Positive Assay Results - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Silvio Warrants Exercised Company Focussing on Nevada Gold Exploration - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

High-Grade Exploration Results From Lydian's Crepulje Zinc-Lead Project in Kosovo - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Taranis Intersects 4.54% Zn, 2.83% Pb, 0.21% Cu, 1.31 g/t Au and 176.17 g/t Ag over 1.71 m in North Extension of True Fissure Zone - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Durango 2007 Review and 2008 Exploration Plan - More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Revett Minerals Updates Reserve Estimates at the Troy Mine - "Revett Minerals Inc. (RVM-TSX) ("Revett" or "the Company") is pleased to report that as a result of its 2007 exploration program and underground mine development work at the Troy Mine, it has essentially replaced the reserves mined during the 2007 fiscal year. As at December 31, 2007, the proven and probable reserves at the Troy Mine were estimated at 13.2 million tons grading 1.18 ounces per ton silver and 0.54% copper, containing an estimated 15.6 million ounces of silver and 142.6 million pounds of copper." More
- January 24, 2008 | Item | E-mail