The Metals:

Gold edged up to $1316.29 at about 7:30AM EST, but it then fell to as low as $1298.89 in New York and ended with a loss of 0.82%.  Silver slipped to as low as $19.684 and ended with a loss of 1.25%.

Euro gold fell to about €943, platinum lost $7.80 to $1408.20, and copper fell a few cents to about $2.97.

Gold and silver equities fell throughout most of trade and ended with almost 4% losses.

The Economy:

U.S. mortgage applications fell last week: MBA Reuters

Tomorrow brings Initial Jobless Claims, GDP, and Pending Home Sales.

The Markets:

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

Oil climbed back above $100 a barrel after the Energy Information Administration reported that crude stockpiles rose 6.6 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell 5.1 million barrels, and distillates rose 1.6 million barrels.

The U.S. dollar index saw slight gains as the euro fell on talk of more stimulus from the ECB.

Treasuries added to early gains after today’s $35 billion 5-year note auction sold at a yield of 1.715% with a bid to cover of 2.99.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P erased early gains and ended notably lower on renewed worries about Ukraine.

Among the big names making news in the market today were Nissan, Boeing, GM, Facebook, and King.

The Commentary:

“The chatter in the Forex markets today centered around the comments of Bundesbank President Weidman who seemed to be concerned about the low level of inflation in the Euro Zone. Throw in the comments of some other major European Central Bankers and that hit the Euro as talk grew that the ECB was moving in the direction of its own version of Quantitative Easing.

Over here in the US Fed Governor Charles Plosser (head of the Phillie Fed) commented that the hurdle to change course on the Fed's plan to taper was "pretty high". By the way, he was concerned that inflation was currently a little low and that he would actually like to see it creep up a bit! How's that for some candid talk?

This sort of stuff, coming from Central Bankers in the West, along with further weakness in the mining shares, was enough to pull the rug out from underneath those buying gold out of any Dollar weakness concerns. If rates in Europe are not going up anytime soon and if the Fed is continuing its current tapering plans, then Gold has those headwinds to contend with.

If that were not enough, copper prices continued to fall lower today out of worries over the health of the Chinese economy. What really has the market roiled however is that persistent weakness in the Yuan. That makes copper more expensive to purchase for Chinese buyers. In a market already experiencing demand issues, that is not helpful.

There is a bit of chatter however that the economy over there is weakening to the point where the Chinese authorities may soon try to do something to generate some growth. Who knows exactly what that might be but it was enough, at this point, to prevent copper from falling any lower. Copper is holding about last week's spike low near 2.87 for now. I would be concerned if it broke down below there as the odds would increase that silver is not going to hold support down near $19 if that were the case. Silver has become a teenager once again.

Here is the chart of gold. As you can see, the bears have regained control of the market on the short term chart. Notice how the price consolidated the last couple of days near the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level indicated. Then today, it fell below that and as of now, has not yet recovered.

It did manage to hold above psychological chart support at the $1300 level. Bulls would not want to lose that as it would further shift the sentiment in the market in favor of the bears. If $1300 goes, then look for a test of the 50% retracement level near $1287. Bulls need to recapture $1340 to gain any sort of traction right now. They certainly need some help from the miners which are down over 2% as I type these comments ( basis HUI).

The US Dollar Index needs to clear 80.50 to run out some of the recent shorts. If it does, gold will more than likely be unable to hold support on the downside. We will have to monitor developments in the currency markets to get a sense of whether or not that is going to be the case.”- Dan Norcini, More at http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

GATA Posts:

European Central Bank now considering even negative interest rates

Gold market manipulation update, March 2014

Americans can't retire as Bill Gross sees 'financial repression'

Bundesbank seen softening on bond monetization in Europe

The Statistics:

Activity from: 3/25/2014

Global Gold ETF Holdings

[WGC Sponsored ETF’s]

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: SPDR subtracted 2.697 tonnes.

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) Total Tonnes in Trust: 166.14: No change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 10,164.74: No change from yesterday’s data.

The Miners:

Goldcorp’s (GG) completed sale of Primero shares, Freeport’s (FCX) dividend, Turquoise Hill’s (TRQ) 2013 results, Ivanhoe’s (IVN) PEA, Lake Shore’s (LSG) drill results, and Newmont’s (NEM) output in Indonesia 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.

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

- Chris Mullen, Gold Seeker Report

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

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