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-- Posted Friday, 8 February 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold climbed higher throughout most of world trade on Friday and ended just slightly off its intraday high of $920.15 with a gain 1.30% and just $8.70 away from setting a new record closing high.  Silver rose to as high as $17.165 before it came back off a few cents in the last half hour of trade, but it still made a new 27 year closing high with a gain of 2.21%.

Euro gold rose to a new record closing high near €633 after climbing close to €635 earlier in the session, platinum gained $37 to $1871 to a new record high, palladium gained $16 to $436, and copper gained over 5 cents to about $3.49.

Gold and silver equities rose over 3.5% by late morning and remained near their highs into the close.

The Economy:

All of this week’s economic reports:

Next week’s economic highlights include the Treasury Budget on Tuesday, Retail Sales and Business Inventories on Wednesday, Initial Jobless Claims and the Trade Balance on Thursday, and Export and Import Prices, the NY Empire State Index, Net Foreign Purchases, Capacity Utilization, Industrial Production, and Michigan Sentiment on Friday.

The Markets:

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

Oil gained more than $3 and over 4% on continued supply concerns in Nigeria and the North Sea.  Some possible problems in Venezuela also had people buying as Exxon Mobil won court orders freezing up to $12 billion of its assets in the country that Chavez seized last year and some traders speculated that Venezuela may retaliate against the ruling.

The U.S. dollar index fell “after a magazine report said OPEC may adopt the euro and abandon the dollar when pricing oil.”

Treasuries rose on worries over a recession and further problems in the financial sector.

The Dow and S&P fell on mostly poor earnings reports and economic worries while the Nasdaq found slight gains.

Among the big names making news in the market Friday were Windstream, Toll, Chrysler, McDonald’s, Weyerhaeuser, and Yahoo and Microsoft.

The Commentary:

“April Gold finished up 12.3 at 922.3, 2.2 off the high and 8.3 up from the low.

March Silver closed up 0.335 at 17.11. This was 0.16 up from the low and 0.1 off the high.

The gold market managed to make a fresh new high for the week and seemed to be managing the rise off a combination of a weaker Dollar, soaring oil prices and perhaps because off ongoing macro economic uncertainty. With platinum and copper prices rising very sharply it would also seem like outside market influences contributed to the buying interest in gold. Just ahead of mid session a rally in the US equity market also seemed to lift gold prices and that would suggest that gold was able to rise despite the direction of the US equity market. Some in the trade suggested that anticipation of some type of economic help from the G7 meeting might help to head the US economy away from recession and that could also have lent some support to gold prices. In the end, the gold market appeared to see investment interest, physical commodity demand interest and even flight to quality interest.

Like the gold market, the silver market was lifted by stellar gains in gold, platinum and copper prices. With the Dollar generally weak and oil prices very firm there appeared to be a number of outside market forces providing the silver bulls with fodder. With the close Friday the silver market managed another new high for the move and that seemed to attract additional speculative buying interest. Certainly record breaking gains in the platinum market and massive weekly gain in copper prices contribute to the investment appeal of silver during the trade Friday.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

John Embry's address to the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 2/07/2008

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: The ASX added 0.19 tonnes.

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU)

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

Silver Trust (SLV)

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: 46.25 tonnes were subtracted from the trust.

The Stocks:

South Africa’s power problems, Newmont’s (NEM) exploration plans, Kimber’s (KBX) new board members and private placement, and Silverstone’s (SST.V) purchase of $17.5 million worth of convertible debentures from Aquiline (AQI.TO) 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.

All of today's gold and silver stock news:

Sierra Engages Max Capital Markets Ltd. for $3.2 Million Private Placement - More
- February 08, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Consolidated Abaddon Resources Inc.: Triex Minerals to Resume Drilling at Mann Lake Uranium Project, Athabasca, Saskatchewan - More
- February 08, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Katanga Announces Agreement on Transfer of Mashamba West and Dikuluwe Deposits - More
- February 08, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Newmont boosts exploration as gold reserves fall - "Newmont Mining Corp (NEM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), is boosting its exploration budget by approximately 10 percent to 15 percent this year and will target smaller-size gold deposits to help build up dwindling reserves, its chief executive said on Friday.

Richard O'Brien also told Wall Street analysts that the world's No. 2 gold producer will spend some $1 billion in capital investment this year, focusing on three major projects -- its Boddington gold mine in Australia, Yanacocha in Peru and completing its own power plant to fuel Newmont's Nevada mines." More
- February 08, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Reno Gold Corp. Is Pleased to Announce the Appointment of Daniel Rubiolo, Ph.D. as Consulting Geologist - More
- February 08, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Coronado Resources Ltd.: Gold Payment Received - More
- February 08, 2008