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-- Posted Friday, 22 February 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

If you blinked you missed it, but after remaining near unchanged in Asia and London gold plunged from yesterday’s COMEX close of $945.50 to as low as $935.20 between 9:45AM EST and 10:30 before it quickly rallied back to about unchanged by noon.  It then waffled on either side of unchanged for the remaining hour and a half of trade and closed with a loss of 0.12% to barely fall from yesterday’s record high.

Silver fell from yesterday’s close of $17.91 to as low as $17.718 before it rallied to a new 27 year intraday high of $18.138 by early afternoon, but it then fell back off a bit in the last hour of trade and ended with a gain of 0.28% at a new 27 year closing high.

Euro gold fell to about €637, platinum fell $5.50 from yesterday’s record high to $2145.50, and copper fell a couple of cents to about $3.79.

Gold and silver equities fell over 2% about an hour into trade, but they then slowly rallied back higher for most of the rest of trade and ended with minimal losses.

COT Gold, Silver and US Dollar Index Report - February 22, 2008

The Economy:

There were no major economic reports today.  All of this week’s economic reports:

Next week’s economic highlights include Existing Home Sales on Monday, PPI and Consumer Confidence on Tuesday, Durable Goods Orders and New Home Sales on Wednesday, GDP and Initial Jobless Claims on Thursday, and Personal Income and Spending, Core PCE Inflation, Chicago PMI, and Michigan Sentiment on Friday.  Bernanke will also be speaking on Wednesday and Thursday to the House and Senate.

The Markets:

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

Oil found decent gains to get back near $99 despite economic demand worries as cold weather hit the Northeast US and geopolitical worries were raised by a Turkish troop incursion into Iraq.

The U.S. dollar index fell and treasuries rose in morning trade on economic worries that also dragged the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P lower for most of trade, but rumors of a near term bailout for Ambac Financial reversed those moves late in the day and the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P ended higher while treasuries dropped slightly and the dollar ended well off its early lows, but still with a minor loss.

Among the big names making news in the market Friday were Ambac Financial, GMAC, PG&E, California and Florida public schools, AQR, and Zwirn.

The Commentary:

“Something smells mighty fishy to me about what is going on in this ETF of late. Some of us have long believed that the inherent flaw in this ETF is in its auditing process which is less than transparent. If the bad guys who comprise COT and are the price managers on behalf of the US monetary authorities needed another source of gold for the supply that they feed into the market to suppress the price, the ETF is a perfect vehicle for this. I find it a huge stretch of the imagination to see gold soaring into all time highs and the one major indicator of investment demand for that same metal sitting there unchanged when it comes to reported holdings for nearly two weeks! I just read this AM that platinum and palladium holdings in the London ETFs for those metals are soaring because of investment demand. Why then is the gold ETF not reporting a sharp increase in its holdings? To believe that nothing has changed in there is to believe that the sun rises in the West.”- Dan Norcini, JSMineset.com

“We are very close to "The Tipping Point" re gold, silver and the shares. The general public is still gold/silver clueless. That has begun to change with the BIG MONEY jumping on board now. The US financial market news continues to be lousy. The Fed will continue to blink on inflation. As this surrender is more widely acknowledged and accepted, the general public is going to pile into the sectors. THE LIGHT BULB WILL BE GLARING and it is away we go.”- From yesterday’s Midas report by Bill Murphy of LemetropoleCafe.com

“April Gold finished down 1.4 at 947.8, 4.7 off the high and 8.8 up from the low.

March Silver closed up 0.085 at 18.035. This was 0.265 up from the low and 0.045 off the high.

The gold market seemed to consolidate at lower price levels with pre-weekend profit taking coming into play after the sharp price gains seen this week. Gold seemed to be pressured early in the session by downward revisions in the US PPI and initial weakness in energy markets cooling some inflation anxiety concerns. A rebound in the Dollar off its lows also seemed to weigh on gold prices. Perhaps news that 4th quarter global jewelry demand fell 17% and that India's gold imports fell 72% compared to a year ago also encouraged some traders to book profits since the data shows soaring gold prices have cut into physical demand. But with oil prices rebounding later in the session and news Turkey launched another military offensive into northern Iraq provided some geopolitical support to gold that help to underpin prices.

Silver prices saw a choppy two sided trade. But an attempt to push the market higher was certainly limited by weakness in the rest of the metals with profit taking at times pushing silver into lower territory. Ideas that silver is relatively undervalued when compared to other metals have enhanced the metal's investment appeal and have attracted new buyers on price dips. Silver may have also been underpinned by rising inflation concerns tied to a push to new highs in the Continuous Commodity Index.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 2/21/2008

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: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: 77.06 tonnes were added to the trust.

The Stocks:

AngloGold’s (AU) suspended exploration in Columbia, Tanzanian Royalty’s (TRE) assay results, Newmont’s (NEM) failed talks with Indonesia, Royal Gold’s (RGLD) closed royalty acquisition, Canyon’s (CAU) completed feasibility study, Aurizon’s (AZK) new appointment, IRC’s (ROY) director resignation, Eldorado’s (EGO) resources and reserves, Lihir’s (LIHR) financial results, South American Silver’s (SAC.TO) drill results, and Silver Standard’s (SSRI) priced offering were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines Friday.

WINNERS

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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:

Castillian Announces Drill Results for 35 Holes from the Near-Surface Las Aguilas West Nickel-Copper-Platinum-Palladium Deposit, Argentina - More
- February 22, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Aldridge Minerals Appoints Charles M. Raymond to its Board of Directors - More
- February 22, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Vangold Receives Repayment of Loan From New Guinea Gold Corp. - More
- February 22, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Newcastle Minerals Ltd. - 43-101 Report Submitted on Iskut Gold-Copper-Molybdenum Deposit - More
- February 22, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Novawest Resources Inc. - Private Placement - More
- February 22, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Centenario Reports Initial Pan De Azucar Inferred Mineral Resource of 35.8 Million Tonnes, Grading 0.47% Copper, 0.20 g/t Gold, 2.1 g/t Silver and 0.011% Moly - More
- February 22, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Molycor Gold Corp.: High Grade Manganese Discovery in Nevada - More
- February 22, 2008 | Item