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-- Posted Friday, 14 March 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold briefly dipped to $990.35 after tame CPI data was released and took some pressure off the fed to dramatically cut interest rates next week, but news of a bailout for Bear Stearns quickly propelled the yellow metal to a new all-time high of $1,007.20 before it pared its gains into the close and ended at a new record closing high with a gain of 0.66%.  Silver dipped to $20.243 and rose to $20.868 before it closed just 3 cents away from of new 27 year closing high with a gain of 1.4%.

Euro gold rose near €639, platinum lost $20.50 to $2070, and copper rose slightly to about $3.85.

Gold and silver equities rose about 1.5% to new all-time highs in early trade before they were dragged slightly lower on the session as the Dow fell over 300 points at one point, but the miners then rallied back higher into the close and ended with roughly 1% gains at new record closing highs.

The Economy:

All of this week’s economic reports:

Next week’s economic highlights include the NY Empire State Index, Net Foreign Purchases, Capacity Utilization, and Industrial Production on Monday, PPI, Building Permits, Housing Starts, and the FOMC Policy Statement on Tuesday, and Initial Jobless Claims, Leading Economic Indicators, and the Philadelphia Fed on Thursday.  Markets will be closed on Friday for Good Friday.

The Markets:

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

Oil waffled near unchanged as the U.S. dollar index fell to yet another new all-time low and treasuries rose while the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P plummeted on news that Bears Stearns needed to be bailed out by the fed and JPMorgan Chase after its cash position "significantly deteriorated."  The market now expects the fed to cut at least 75 basis points next Tuesday with a further 50% chance that they will cut by 100 basis points priced in.

The Commentary:

“April Gold finished up 5.7 at 999.5, 8 off the high and 7.2 up from the low.

May Silver closed up 0.235 at 20.655. This was 0.305 up from the low and 0.29 off the high.

The gold market showed a rather wide range of trade on Friday morning with the April contract forging a low to high range of roughly $17.50 an ounce. While the gold market was seeing signs of minor production losses due to a mining strike, the main impetus behind the pulse up in prices was seemingly the revived financial sector concerns toward a major US brokerage firm. With a host of physical commodities coming under aggressive selling pressure into mid session, it wasn't all that surprising to see gold prices slide by almost $13 an ounce from the morning highs. Perhaps the market was disappointed in the lack of definitive downside follow through in the US Dollar because gold seemed to lose part of its early bullish vibe.

Like gold, the silver market displayed a volatile trade in the last trading session of the week with the May contract managing a morning rally of roughly 63 cents. However, silver did seem to be at least partially undermined as a result of the mid day rather sharp setback in a host of physical commodity prices. In fact, weakness in platinum, copper, grains, soft commodities and livestock prices also seemed to diffuse some of the speculative long interest in silver during the Friday trade.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

Goldman expects 'explosive' commodities, oil rising to $175

Fed bails out Bear Stearns as stocks plunge

David Morgan: Nothing beats gold and silver in hand

Two financial houses are expecting currency intervention

At least there's SOMETHING in Ethiopia's gold vault

ECB urged to rig currency market, just like gold market

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 3/13/2008

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

The Stocks:

Almaden’s (AAU) drilling, Paramount’s (PZG) trading on the TSX, Metallica’s (MRB) 2007 results and operations update, and Gammon Gold’s (GRS) law suit were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines Friday.

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