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-- Posted Wednesday, 13 February 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold fell to $896.02 in Asia and traded near $900 in London before it rose to as high as $910.70 by early afternoon in New York, but it then fell back off a bit in the last hour of trade and ended with a loss of 0.25%.  Silver fell to $16.89 in Asia and rose to $17.36 by early afternoon in New York before it also dropped slightly into the close, but it still ended with a gain of 0.23%.

Euro gold fell to about €622, platinum gained $67.50 to $1985 to a new record high, and copper fell a few cents to about $3.52.

Gold and silver equities fell slightly by midmorning, but they then climbed higher for the rest of trade and ended with about 2% gains.

The Economy:

Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 2/09 expected at 350,000 and the Trade Balance for December expected at -$61.5 billion.

The Markets:

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

Oil rose as Chavez said Venezuela would stop selling crude to Exxon and inventories came in a little worse than expected. Crude inventories built 1.1 million barrels, gasoline inventories built 1.7 million barrels, and distillates fell 100,000 barrels.

The U.S. dollar index found slight gains and treasuries fell a bit after Retail Sales came in better than expected and pushed interest rates higher.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose as strong Retail Sales eased worries about a slowing economy.

Among the big names making news in the market today were Vonage, Coca-Cola, Deere, and First Solar.

The Commentary:

"April Gold finished down 0.9 at 910.2, 3.3 off the high and 8.7 up from the low.

March Silver closed up 0.103 at 17.353. This was 0.288 up from the low and 0.017 off the high.

The gold market seemed to start the session out under the same pressure seen from the prior trading session, but the market was able to reject a test of the sub $900 level in the wake of a better than expected US retail sales reading. However, periodic strength in the US Dollar seemed to undermine gold and in fact that development seemed to keep gold under pressure in the face of an early afternoon bounce in both silver and platinum prices. Surprisingly at one time the platinum market had managed a rally of roughly nearly $80 an ounce and that didn't seem to provide much in the way of spillover buying into gold. Some traders continue to think that gold prices have become choppy as a result of declining macro economic uncertainty and with the silver and platinum market managing distinct gains during the session Wednesday there seemed to be something causing the markets to diverge.

The silver market managed to shake off some early weakness in the wake of a better than expected US retail sales reading, favorable equity market action and perhaps even because the US economic stimulus plan was signed into law by the President. It is possible that the silver market was lifted by the overt and historic strength in platinum prices today, which at least temporarily managed a climb above the $2,000 per ounce level. However, some of the potential spillover windfall from the strength platinum prices might have been countervailed by a sloppy to weak trade in the copper market.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

Ted Butler: Back to basics

Depression risk may force government to buy many assets, analyst says

U.S. credit crisis escalates as mortgage defaults spread

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 2/12/2008

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

 Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: The LSE added 0.55 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:

Centerra Gold’s (CG.TO) Kumtor project, Great Basin’s (GBN) exploration drifting, Newmont’s (NEM) divestiture process in Indonesia, ITH’s (THM) initial mineral resource estimate, Kirkland’s (KGI.TO) drill results, Hecla’s (HL) plans to acquire the assets of Independence Lead Mines, and Alexco’s (AXU) drill results 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:

Conway Resources Negotiates a $200,000 Private Placement - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Crowflight Closes $55 Million Debt Facility - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Tao Minerals Continues Retaining Cohen Consulting as Agency of Record - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Government of Kyrgyz Republic Requests Extension on Agreements Regarding Centerra's Kumtor Project - "Centerra Gold Inc. (Toronto:CG.TO - News) reported that it has received a letter today from the Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic requesting an extension of the deadline for completion of the transactions contemplated by the preliminary framework agreements on the Kumtor Project from February 15, 2008 to April 30, 2008." More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

43-101 Resource Estimate Released on Geoinformatics' Azulitas Prospect - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Mantis Mineral Corp. - News Release - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Baffinland Announces a Near Tripling of Tonnage in the 2007 Mineral Resource and Reserve Statement for the Mary River Project - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Geodex reports drill results from the northern tungsten-copper zones (Zones I and II) on the Sisson Brook property, New Brunswick - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

International PBX Ventures Ltd. Appoints Mr. Mike Parr as General Manager of Chilean Operations - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Forsys Announces Joly Zone Trenching Results - More
- February 13, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Cannivan Gulch has indicated resource containing 225 million pounds and inferred resource containing 167 million pounds of molybdenum