Gold & Silver Market Morning

Gold Today – The gold price closed at $1,262.90 down $7.10 on Thursday in New York. In Asia and London, gold prices were slightly higher at $1,264.The gold price was Fixed at $1,264.00 down $7.00 and in the euro at €975.685 up €8.998 while the euro was very weak [2 cents] at $1.2955. Ahead of New York’s opening, gold was trading at $1,264.90 and in the euro at €976.26.

Silver Today – The silver price closed in New York at $19.08 down 14 cents. Ahead of New York’s opening it was trading at $19.10.

Gold _{(very short-term)} We expect gold to consolidate, in New York today.

Silver _{(very short-term)} We expect silver to consolidate, in New York today.

Price Drivers

There were sales of 4.76 tonnes of gold from the SPDR gold ETF and 0.04 of a tonne from the Gold Trust, on Thursday. The holdings of the gold ETFs stand at 785.725 tonnes in the SPDR gold ETF and at 165.23 tonnes in the Gold Trust.The performance of the gold price in the euro was good, jumping €10 as the euro plummeted after the E.C.B.’s statements, rate cuts and the start of quantitative easing. The $5 drop in the U.S. gold price occurred late in the day and was another arbitrage action. What was encouraging was the fact that the gold price saw physical demand come in at these levels. Subscribe to www.GoldForecaster.com – so your gold will not be confiscated and you not penalized -see www.Stockbridgemgmt.com.

The European Central Bank cut three key interest rates yesterday by 0.1% percentage point. The refinancing rate was lowered to 0.05%, the marginal lending rate to 0.3% and the rate on the deposit facility to negative 0.2%. Draghi stresses that , “We have now reached the lower bound.” Markets are factoring in that this tool for stimulation is now exhausted. His surprise actions were not expected by markets until the year end. The signal now sent to markets is that the euro exchange rate is set on the downward path because it will be forced there in a controlled fall. But the markets immediately knocked 2cents off the exchange rate, before the fall halted.

The new sanctions to be imposed on Russia will not be sufficient to change its policy on Ukraine. But the fact that they continue to target financial markets is a two-edged sword. In Russia these will be seen as aggressive actions and, we expect, will produce retaliation that will hurt the Eurozone more. The escalation of the crisis is now expected. With $100 billion of debt to be re-financed in the next 6 months, we will not be surprised if Russia imposes Capital Controls to prevent capital from exiting. After all, their access to western capital markets is being shut off, so little is to be gained by letting this capital flow out. More importantly Eastern nations are seeing a rising politicization or the dollar which darkens the dollar’s future.

Silver– The silver price not depart from gold’s path, today.www.SilverForecaster.com]

Regards,