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-- Posted Wednesday, 18 June 2008 | Digg This Article | Source: GoldSeek.com

The Metals:

Gold fell to $880.80 in Asia and rose to $894 at the New York open before it fell back under $885 a little before noon EST, but it then rallied back higher into the close and ended with a gain of 0.73%.  Silver fell to $16.95 and rose to $17.465 before it dropped back under $17.20, but it also rallied back higher into the close and ended with a gain of 1.5%.

Euro gold rose to about €574, platinum gained $30.50 to $2088, and copper gained nearly 9 cents to about $3.74.

Gold and silver equities remained near unchanged for most of trade as higher metal prices battled a generally weak stock market, but the miners did rise to find nearly 1% gains by the close.

The Economy:

There were no major economic reports today, but the “Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity fell 8.7 percent to 508.4 in the week ended June 13.”  Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 6/14 expected at 375,000.  At 10AM is the Leading Economic Indicators report for May expected at 0.0% and the Philadelphia Fed survey expected at -10.0.

The Markets:

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

Oil fell in early trade as inventories came in rather tame with refinery activity rising and gasoline demand falling, but prices rose in late trade and ended with a nearly 2% gain on worries over a strike in Nigeria and word from the energy secretary that he would not advise tapping into the strategic petroleum reserve as some had suspected the government may do.  The White House also does not expect Saudi Arabia to announce a production increase at their meeting this weekend and while President Bush called for an end to the offshore oil drilling ban, few have any confidence that measure can work its way through congress.  Oil inventories fell 1.2 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell 1.2 million barrels, distillate inventories rose 2.6 million barrels, and refinery utilization climbed 0.7% to 89.3%.

The U.S. dollar index fell and treasuries rose as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell about 1% on more financial worries after a respected analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland said that the S&P will fall 300 points by September due to failing credit markets and soaring inflation.

Among the big names making news in the market today were Morgan Stanley, FedEx, Pfizer, Fifth Third, and Wachovia.

The Commentary:

“August Gold finished up 6.6 at 893.5, 2.5 off the high and 6.5 up from the low.

July Silver closed up 0.265 at 17.34. This was 0.08 up from the low and 0.17 off the high.

The gold market waffled around both sides of unchanged in the morning action but seemed to settle into a stronger bias in the afternoon action. With the US equity market down aggressively at times Wednesday, the gold market could have come under initial pressure from the fear of too much slowing but as the losses in the equity market mounted it seemed as if fresh buyers surfaced in the gold market. Once again the weakness in the Dollar seemed to dominate trading sentiment in gold. As suggested in the mid day coverage the gold market initially saw the slide in energy prices as a negative and that is logical if one assumes that increased drilling in the US will eventually reduce US reliance on foreign supplies.

Clearly the silver market was tracking its quasi industrial or physical commodity market fundamentals throughout the trading session Wednesday, as the weakness in gold prices in the morning action didn't seem to undermine the silver market. However, both platinum and copper prices were partially lifted by supply side issues and therefore silver might have been catching spillover over speculative buying.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

GATA Posts:

Bear bailout shows Fed doesn't follow normal rules for its own books

Loss of credibility by Fed, ECB will spark crash, bank's analyst warns

Henry C.K. Liu: The Fed and the strong-dollar policy

Bank of England copies 'inflation will be temporary' pose

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 6/17/2008

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

 Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: SPDR added 12.27 tonnes.

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: 46.17 tonnes were removed from the trust.

The Stocks:

Fronteer’s (FRG) option and joint-venture agreement with Newmont (NEM), Great Basin’s (GBN) increased resources, Agnico-Eagle’s (AEM) board appointments, the approved business combination between Metallica, New Gold, and Peak Gold, Frontier’s agreement with Eldorado, Lihir’s scheme of arrangement with Equigold, Silvercorp’s (SVM.TO) tunneling discoveries, Endeavour’s (EXK) drill results, MAG’s (MVG) resource estimate, Coeur’s (CDE) dore pour, and Silver Dragon’s (SDRG.OB) board 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:

Gold Crest Mines, Inc. and Electrum Ltd. Propose New Joint Venture - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Volta Resources intersects 8 metres grading 12.34 g/t gold at its Kampti Gold Project, Burkina Faso, West Africa - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Coro Provides Update on San Jorge Project - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Silver Shield Resources Grants Stock Options - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

CityView Corporation Announces Results of Independent Review of Company's Assets by PricewaterhouseCoopers - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Durango Enters into Agreement to Acquire Big Bulk Copper-Gold Project, British Columbia - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

NQ Exploration Arranges Non-Brokered Private Placements and Announces its First Closing - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

First Quantum Minerals Completes Acquisition of Scandinavian Minerals - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Silvercorp Metals Inc.: Tunnelling Discovers Two High Grade Silver-Lead Veins at Newly Acquired TLP Mine, Ying Silver Camp, Henan Province, China - "The TLP vein system is composed of 10 veins, 6 of which are roughly parallel and are stacked en-echelon veins with a strike length of up to 3 km. Historical exploration on the T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, and T6 veins has resulted in historical mineral resources, calculated between 1,100 metre and 700 metre elevations for these veins, of 3,688,343 tonnes grading 292 grams per tonne (g/t) silver (Ag) and 3.30% lead (Pb) (Chinese Government Standard Class C+D). As a non - NI 43-101 compliant resource calculation, and as mining of the resource by the prior operator has occurred, the resource cannot be relied upon." More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Genco responds to inappropriate actions of Anderson - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Genco Resources' Largest Shareholder Disputes Haywood Commentary on Proxy Contest - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Pacific Coast Nickel Mobilizes at Big Nic - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Murgor announces a significant size increase of the Wim copper-gold deposit in Manitoba - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

Kinross Gold Corporation Commits to a $2.5 Million Investment in Chapleau Resources Ltd. - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail

62.27g/t (1.816oz/ton) over 1.1 metre - Roxmark continues to intersect high-grade gold mineralization at Northern Empire Mine - More
- June 18, 2008 | Item | E-mail