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-- Posted Friday, 7 March 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold rose to $986.15 immediately following the jobs report, but it was then knocked down for the rest of trade and ended near its low of $969.45 with a loss of 0.28%.  Silver rose to $20.58 before it dropped to $19.825 by about 9:45AM EST, but it then rallied back higher and was able to end with a gain of 0.10%.

Euro gold fell to about €634, platinum lost $150 to $2020, and copper gained a couple of cents to about $3.93.

Gold and silver equities fell over 3.5% by early afternoon, but they then rallied back slightly in the last couple of hours of trade and ended with only about 3% losses.

The Economy:

Jobs fell the most in 5 years despite a BLS Net Birth/Death adjustment that added 135,000 payrolls.  Also making economic news today was a hearing on Capitol Hill over CEO pay that mostly involved the grilling of current and former CEOs overlooking the subprime financial mess.

“The Federal Reserve moved to add as much as $200 billion to the banking system over the next month to offset a deepening credit crisis that may have already pushed the U.S. economy into a recession.

The central bank raised to $50 billion each from $30 billion the amount intended for auctions of funds on March 10 and March 24. The Fed also said in a statement in Washington today that it will make $100 billion available through weekly 28-day repurchase agreements, where the central bank will lend cash in return for assets including mortgage-backed bonds.”

All of this week’s economic reports:

Next week’s economic highlights include Wholesale Inventories on Monday, the Trade Balance on Tuesday, the Treasury Budget on Wednesday, Export and Import Prices, Initial Jobless Claims, Retail Sales, and Business Inventories on Thursday, and CPI and Michigan Sentiment on Friday.

The Markets:

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

Oil rose midday to a new record intraday high of $106.54, but it fell to find a slight loss by the close on worries that a recession may decrease demand.

The U.S. dollar index rose from record lows despite the disappointing jobs data as short traders took profits from a week of heavy selling.

Treasuries rose on the horrible jobs number that raised recession fears and dragged the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P lower for most of the day.  Financial worries were also raised as Thornburg Mortgage said it may not have enough liquidity to be an ongoing concern due to margin calls.

Among the big names making news in the market Friday were Quiksilver, Thornburg Mortgage, Carlyle Group, Ambac, Ciena, and MBIA.

The Commentary:

“Someone has nailed a big time lid on gold and refuses to let it out of the box. I will give you three guesses as to who that might be and the first two, "profit takers", do not count. There appears to be a near panic among the gold price managers to keep this thing from getting above $1000 no matter what happens to the dollar. The Dollar literally went into a freefall after the horrendous payrolls number hit the wire but gold could not break through the wall of selling that almost instantaneously appeared above the gold market.

How many times have we seen this on a Friday in the years past whenever we have seen a pathetic payrolls number? Too many times to mention.”- Dan Norcini, Much more free commentary at JSMineset.com

“April Gold finished down 2.9 at 974.2, 15.8 off the high and 3.2 up from the low.

May Silver closed up 0.025 at 20.25. This was 0.33 up from the low and 0.48 off the high.

The gold market was either poised for a profit taking setback in the wake of its recent gains or the market on Friday was undermined by a recovery bounce in the Dollar, concerns of too much US slowing or because of growing concerns of a broad based physical commodity market liquidation. With the South African government seemingly working toward restoring the performance of the power supply, it is also possible that some longs decided to liquidate because of declining supply concerns. However, overt weakness in the US equity market and periodic new all time highs in oil prices certainly seems to keep the threat of flight to quality buying interest alive in the gold market.

The silver market clearly tracked a more positive general track than the gold market during the Friday trade. However, silver and gold both seemed to be undermined by the prospect of ongoing broad based physical commodity market selling. However, the silver market was apparently able to discount part of the threat of too much US slowing, as both silver and copper prices spent a lot of time in positive ground, despite the sharp declines in the US equity market and the softer than expected US Non Farm payroll readings.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

John Embry: Gold is still spectacularly underpriced

Barrick irritated by delay of Pascua Lama mine in Argentina, Chile

NY Fed chief says low rates are needed for some time

Hawkish ECB dashes hopes for cutting interest rates

Dollar still stronger than it might be, IMF says

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 3/6/2008

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: StreetTRACKS subtracted 0.17 tonnes and the ASX added 0.20 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:

NovaGold’s (NG) financing, Vista Gold’s (VGZ) closed private placement, Stillwater’s (SWC) note pricing, Golden Star’s (GSS) president and CEO appointment, Gold Fields’ (GFI) power increase, MAG Silver’s (MVG) amended MD&A, and Bear Creek’s (BCM.V) agreement to purchase Rio Tinto's remaining 30% interest in the Corani silver and base-metals deposit were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines Friday.

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