Monthly Archives: September 2011

U.S. gold and silver prices surged Friday after data showing zero jobs in August fueled recession fears and pressed investors toward safe-haven assets.

"I think there was a great deal of disappointment with the employment numbers and that kicked off speculation of further quantitative easing or some sort of monetary response," said HSBC metals analyst and senior vice president James Steel, according to Reuters. "The (gold) market was pretty much all on one-side, largely buying interest after the jobs report," Steel said.

Gold advanced 12.3 percent in August, dipped modestly in its September start on Thursday, and then surged following Friday's jobs report [...]

More than a dozen gold and silver products have once again been halted by the United States Mint -- the victim of soaring precious metal prices. The bureau indicates that a total of eighteen different gold and silver products have been affected by the suspension.

The suspension announcements, released by the Mint earlier Friday afternoon, include a total of fourteen gold coins and four silver sets. As of this posting, only the collector grade coins have been impacted, leaving the gold commemorative coins intact. Their prices have more cushion as they recently received a price increase based on rising gold prices and a new commemorative gold coin price guide [...]

Way in advance of the release of the US payrolls data the gold market appeared to cast its vote on where on the numbers' spectrum such statistics coming from the US Labor Dept. would reside this morning.

Bullion prices gained nearly 2% in advance of the opening of the New York trading session and they did so despite a steady-to-rising US dollar and (once again) despite a loss of nearly 1% in crude oil and a decline in copper. In fact, the entire precious metals' complex was trading significantly higher even as perceptions of the global slowdown appeared to impact sentiment (and prices) across the board in base metals and certain other (wheat, for example) commodities [...]

U.S. gold and silver prices dipped modestly on the first trading day of the month. The yellow metal's decline halted a two-session winning streak and comes after gold jumped 12.3 percent in August.

Cited factors attributed to losses included a surging U.S. dollar and newly released  Institute for Supply Management (ISM) data showing slow, but better-than-expected growth in the manufacturing sector [...]

Spot gold dealings opened with a gain of... $1.00 -- if you can believe such a number after the past couple of weeks of that market's gyrations. The $1,830 resistance area (and the more significant one at $1,855 or so) is holding up for the moment but then again so has the $1,775 support one (as well as the far more pivotal one at $1,650), thus far. Spot gold was bid at $1,825.20 the ounce and players were eyeing a rising greenback as well as a small slippage in crude oil and a larger one (1.35%) in copper. More on the commodities' saga follows below.

Silver added 16 cents to start Thursday's action at $41.71 per ounce. Resistance in the white metal is currently in place above, near the $41.15 and up to the $43.10 level while the $37 level still presents a pivot point/ cliff-edge situation to be watched as [...]