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-- Posted Friday, 11 April 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold rose to $932.20 in London before it fell to $917.17 by late morning in New York, but it then rallied back higher into the close and ended with a loss of just 0.45%.  Silver rose to $18.14 in London before it fell to $17.44 by late morning in New York, but it then rallied back higher into the close and ended with a loss of just 1.7%.

Euro gold fell to about €585, platinum lost $17 to $1999.50, and copper gained a couple of cents to about $3.97.

Gold and silver equities steadily fell for most of trade and ended with a little over 2% losses.

The Economy:

All of this week’s economic reports:

Next week’s economic highlights include Retail Sales and Business Inventories on Monday, PPI, the NY Empire State Index, and Net Foreign Purchases on Tuesday, CPI, Housing Starts, Building Permits, Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization, and the fed’s Beige Book on Wednesday, and Initial Jobless Claims, Leading Indicators, and the Philadelphia Fed survey on Thursday.

The Markets:

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

Oil fell in early trade after the IEA cuts its forecast for world oil demand growth, but energy prices moved back higher by the close as traders established positions for the weekend.

The U.S. dollar index fell and treasuries rose after Michigan Sentiment came in much lower than expected at a 26 year low, but losses in the dollar were somewhat limited as most waited for headlines from this weekend’s G7 meeting.  Traders are now pricing in a 54% chance that the fed will cut by 50 basis points at their meeting at the end of the month.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell throughout trade and ended over 2% lower after GE missed estimates and brought down expectations even further for other earnings reports still due out for the quarter.  Next week includes reports from several of the big financial firms.

Among the big names making news in the market Friday were GE, Yahoo and Microsoft, AMD, Frontier, and Lehman Brothers.

The Commentary:

“Just a short update on market views:

Gold- Appears to be building a base after a massive rally this past Winter. While seasonal factors come into play in a couple of months, worldwide economic and political concerns should keep us from seeing any sharp corrections.

U.S. Stock Market - The massive influx of money created out of thin air has bought the bulls some time but I don't think the worse is over. I do think the downside target remains DJIA 10,800-11,000 until further notice.

U.S. Dollar - So long as economic weakness persists, rallies should be just bear market corrections. Somewhere down the road, when it becomes the inflation genie is out of the bottle to all, then we could see a significant dollar rally as interest rates rise sharply. But that is more likely at the minimum, 12-24 months from now, if not longer.

Oil- we may finally see a significant correction of 10%- 20%. But $90-$100 oil is still quite high.”- Peter Grandich, Grandich Letter

“June Gold finished down 4.8 at 927, 8 off the high and 6.5 up from the low.

May Silver closed down 0.353 at 17.69. This was 0.15 up from the low and 0.45 off the high.

The gold market started out with an early probe above the $935 level in the June contract before falling sharply off that high to a mid session low of $920.6. However, into the early afternoon action the market managed a bounce perhaps because it appeared that the US Dollar was going to stay in negative ground for the day. Certainly the combination of slack US economic readings and uncertainty off the GE earnings news rekindled flight to quality concerns but apparently the fear of too much slowing was also a dominating force in the trade. Clearly the G7 meeting served to keep some would be buyers on the sidelines Friday because of fears of a surprise move from the Group of Seven to support the Greenback. In looking back on the week, the gold market seemed to establish a much tighter link with the energy complex than to the US Dollar.

Like the gold market, silver prices started out with a fleeting rally attempt but then failed rather aggressively into the scheduled US numbers and the slide in US equity prices. Surprisingly the silver market didn't seem to garner that much support from residual strength in copper prices and from residual strength in unleaded gasoline prices. With grain prices sharply lower and a long list of physical commodity prices also under pressure some silver bulls might be have fearful of a resurgent wave of broad based selling interest.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 4/10/2008

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:

Paramount’s (PZG) new technical advisor, South American Silver’ (SAC.TO) test results, and Fresnillo’s upcoming IPO on the LSE were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines Friday.

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