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-- Posted Thursday, 27 March 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold rose to $953.30 in Asia before it fell nearly 1% to $940.20 in New York shortly after decent economic data gave the dollar a bounce, but the yellow metal then rallied back higher into the close and ended unchanged on the day.  Silver fell to as low as $17.927 in early New York trade, but it then rallied higher for the rest of the day and ended at its high of the session with a gain of 0.93%.

Euro gold fell to about €601, platinum gained $46 to $2036, and copper gained over 15 cents to about $3.90.

Gold and silver equities fell over 1% about an hour into trade before they rallied back near unchanged by mid-afternoon, but they then fell back off with the major indices in the last hour of trade and ended with over 1% losses.

The Economy:

Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Personal Income for February expected at 0.3%, Personal Spending expected at 0.1%, and Core PCE Inflation expected at 0.1%.  At 10AM is Michigan Sentiment for March expected at 70.0.

The Markets:

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

Oil rose over $1 after pipeline attacks in Iraq raised supply concerns.

The U.S. dollar index rose and treasuries fell after economic data did not disappoint this morning as it has done so often recently.  Those moves continued after the first auction of “the Federal Reserve's $75 billion Term Securities Lending Facility showed that banks were not in dire need of funding.”

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P traded mostly lower despite good economic data and a decent TSLF auction as concerns over more financial writedowns and a poor IT spending outlook from Oracle kept investors worried.

Among the big names making news in the market today were ConAgra, Clear Channel, Merrill, UBS, American Express and GE, Oracle, and Paccar.

The Commentary:

“April Gold finished down 0.4 at 948.8, 1.2 off the high and 8.8 up from the low.

May Silver closed up 0.167 at 18.55. This was 0.54 up from the low and 0.01 off the high.

The gold market waffled around unchanged throughout the trading session with the market seemingly throwing off morning weakness to forge a weak rally in early afternoon trade. Perhaps weakness in the second set of US scheduled data served to weaken the US Dollar or perhaps the gold market was supported in the wake of a long list of statements from the US Fed. In fact, two Fed members were out with what could have been considered somewhat surprising dialogue. The Fed was certainly attempting to calm concerns but with the dialogue attempting to dialogue the magnitude of the capital commitment in Bear Stearns it was clear that the Fed was aware of the seriousness of the US financial situation. The Fed also suggested that US financial firms that pose "systemic" risk must be watched and with the Fed also conceding that house sale stabilization continues to be a very critical objective, it is possible that the flight to quality players in gold were emboldened in their interest in gold.

Silver also waffled around both sides of unchanged like gold for the first half of the trading session but mounted a somewhat impressive early afternoon rally. Apparently the silver market did see some support from the slightly better than expected early US numbers but perhaps the silver market ultimately saw support from the all day strength in copper and platinum prices. Perhaps the silver market also saw support from an early afternoon weakening in the US Dollar.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

Bank of England preparing to buy banks' junk mortgages

GATA circle is organizing in Brisbane area

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 3/27/2008

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: The JSE added 0.25 tonnes.

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU)

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: 3.07 tonnes were removed from the trust.

Silver Trust (SLV)

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

The Stocks:

Newmont’s (NEM) lower output in Indonesia, Richmont’s (RIC) completed property acquisition, Barrick’s (ABX) investment in Allied Gold, Keegan’s (KNG) property acquisition, Eldorado’s (EGO) 2007 financial results, Fury’s (FUR.V) mill manager search, and Hecla’s (HL) Senior Vice President appointment 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:

Ascendant Copper Completes Acquisition of St. Genevieve Resources - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Minera Andes provides San Jose mine update - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Lakota Resources Retains Services of The Buick Group - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Golden Dawn Minerals Inc. Announces Non-Brokered Private Placement - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Geoinformatics Reports Extensive Zinc-Silver-Gold Mineralization at Los Chinos, Mexico from Joint Venture Drilling - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Canadian Mining Company Signs Formal Option Agreement with Exploraciones San Bernardo S.A. de C.V. - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

CZM Acquires TAG Gold/Silver Property - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Copper Fox Metals Inc. - First Quarter Results - Three Months Ended January 31, 2008 - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Buffalo Arranges Convertible Debt Financing With Longview Capital Partners - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

First Nickel Reports Financial and Operating Results For the Year Ended December 31, 2007 - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Campbell Resources announces fiscal 2007 financial results - Achievements in 2007 establish solid base for growth - More
- March 27, 2008 | Item | E-mail