The Metals:

Gold climbed to as high as $1648.62 by a little after 9AM EST before it fell back to $1636.51 by late morning in New York, but it then rallied back higher midday and ended with a gain of 0.65% from last Thursday’s close.  Silver climbed to $31.93 in Asia before it fell back to $31.32 and then also bounced back higher, but it still ended with a loss of 0.6%.

Euro gold rose to about €1252, platinum gained $12.70 to $1610.50, and copper dropped 7 cents to about $3.72.

Gold and silver equities rose almost 2% in the first half hour of trade before they fell back off midmorning, but they still ended with modest gains.

The Economy:

There were no major economic reports today, but there was still plenty of reaction to last Friday’s jobs data that was released when the stock market was closed in observance of Good Friday.  Nonfarm Payrolls rose just 120,000, the Unemployment Rate fell to 8.2%, Hourly Earnings came in at 0.2%, and the Average Workweek stood at 34.5.  The BLS net birth/death adjustment added 90,000 payrolls to March’s data.  Private Payrolls rose 121,000.

Tomorrow at 10AM EST brings Wholesale Inventories for February expected at 0.5%.

The Markets:

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

Oil fell on poor economic data that reduced demand expectations.

Treasuries rose as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell along with the U.S. dollar index on disappointing jobs data that reignited arguments for more easy money from the fed.

Among the big names making news in the market today were Facebook and Instagram, Ford, Avon, Sony, JPMorgan, and AOL.

The Commentary:

“[Friday’s] Payrolls number for the month of March came in at 120K, far less than the market was expecting. The response of those futures markets which were still open for trading was swift and immediate - Emini S&P 500 futures dropped sharply while the US long bond staged a nearly two point rally.

So much for notions that the economy is performing well enough that the QE3 option is off the table.

The markets will not interpret this abysmal number as the start of a new and lower trend in employment but it will serve to squelch some of the uncalled for and certainly undeserved euphoria about the state of the US economic recovery that we have been treated to of late by the spinmeisters and various talking heads.

Some might try talking up the insignificant drop in the unemployment rate to 8.2% but that is another cute statistical gimmick brought about by the fact that the participation rate fell once again. Fewer people in the overall work force tends to push the unemployment number down masking the true condition of the chronically out of work who have simply given up looking for work.

Some are going to wait for the next month's numbers to see if this one was a one-off but for the time being, it should at least serve to stop the mouths of those pooh-poohing the notion that another round of QE is not going to be considered at some point. The economy may be plodding along but it is certainly not setting any records as far as increasing growth goes.

One other thing to consider here - not only will job growth need to do better than 250,000 month to get people excited, it also has to be growing fast enough to provide jobs for new additions to the work force - namely college grads and high school seniors who will be graduating within the next two months. Exactly where are they supposed to find work? It is one thing to have an economy growing at a rate fast enough to bring back into it those who have been unemployed and looking for work for more months than they can remember - but what about these new graduates also?

In the meantime I thought I would post a couple of charts detailing the Custodial Accounts for Foreign Central Banks at the US Federal Reserve.

Take a look at these and you can get a bit of an idea about foreign central bank appetite for US government and government agency debt.

I am quite curious as to whether or not these Treasury holdings have reached a plateau. They have remained under the $2.75 Trillion level for some time now. Have we reached a point where they are saying "NO MAS!"?

If so, then will the Fed step up its purchases of US Treasuries to make up for the fall off in demand? All very good questions that we need to monitor as they will serve to show us whether or not our foreign "bankers" are willing to finance further our profligate ways.”- Dan Norcini, More at http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

GATA Posts:

Exposure of gold market manipulation is producing results

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Gold crash on Fed tightening and euro salvation looks premature

China investing in foreign mines and buying gold directly

If gold isn't money, why did Vietnam just outlaw using it as such?

What's the central bank endgame in gold?

Money Morning interviews Ted Butler on silver market manipulation

Credit derivatives market being manipulated by Morgan / U.S. govt.

The Statistics:

As of close of business: 4/05/2012

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

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

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) Total Tonnes in Trust: 180.77: No change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 9,665.38: -45.3 change from yesterday’s data.

The Miners:

Gold Resource’s (GORO) record production was the only big story 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.

Please see Yahoo’s Mining/Metals News Wire for all of today’s mining news.

- Chris Mullen, Gold Seeker Report

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Additional Resources for today’s Gold Seeker Report can be found:

• http://www.capitalupdates.com
• http://www.goldseek.com
• http://www.silverseek.com
• http://www.goldreview.com 

© Gold Seeker 2012

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-- Posted Monday, 9 April 2012 | Digg This Article