Gold Ends the Week 1% Down as Oil Slides 12%, Wall Street Rally Fades; Fed Split Over Interest Rates

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold’s volatile week continued on Friday, seeing it rise almost $5 to $964.50 in London before it dropped as low as $949.70 per ounce by the New York open.

Gold Prices then rallied $7 from that low in the final hours of US trade and closed with a loss of 1.34% for the session.

Crude oil ended lower again in mixed trade, dropping 12% from Tuesday's near-record high, as speculation over falling demand overcame concerns about stormy weather this Hurricane Season. All eyes now turn to the US meeting with Iran in Geneva this weekend, focused on Tehran's nuclear research program but unlikely to accomplish anything concrete in diffusing tensions.

The US Dollar index ended slightly higher as fears eased slightly about the health of the financial sector. Treasuries ended lower after Citigroup posted a smaller than expected loss of $2.5 billion.

For the week Gold dropped 1% to end at $956.70 per ounce. Silver dropped more than 3% from the previous Friday, ending near its low of $18.03 an ounce.

The Gold Price in Euros slipped below €603, down 0.3% for the week, while platinum lost $38.50 to $1850.50 – down 8% for the week – and copper fell nearly 5 cents to about $3.69.

US gold and silver equities rose around 1% by midmorning Friday, but they then fell back off a bit in afternoon trade and ended mixed and near unchanged.

The Dow and S&P traded mixed and near unchanged in surprisingly unvolatile and low volume trade for an options expirations day. The Nasdaq fell over 1% on poor tech earnings reports.

There were no major economic reports Friday. Federal Reserve members Stern and Hoenig called for higher interest rates, but their comments come in contrast to Fed chairman Bernanke’s dovish talk earlier in the week.

Next week’s economic highlights include Leading Economic Indicators on Monday, the fed’s Beige Book on Wednesday, Exiting Home Sales on Thursday, and Durable Goods Orders, Michigan Sentiment, and New Home Sales on Friday.

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