Gold ends Weds down 0.33% as US home sales fall further

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

The Spot Gold Price traded roughly $2 higher in Asia and London on Wednesday before it fell back off in New York and dropped to as low as $659.30 by late morning.

The Gold Market then rebounded slightly in afternoon trade and ended with a loss of just 0.33%. Silver dropped to as low as $12.79 before it also rallied back higher in afternoon trade and ended with a loss of just 0.16%.

The Euro Price of Gold fell to about €480, platinum lost $10 to $1,300, palladium gained $1 to $366, and copper remained at about $3.59.

Gold and silver equities traded mostly slightly lower throughout the day and ended with less than 0.5% losses.

There were no major economic reports yesterday, but the headlines continued to focus on falling US home sales and slower new housing starts.

Today at 08:30 EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for week-ending 7/07 expected at 315,000 and the US Trade Balance for May expected at -$60.0 billion. At noon is the Treasury Budget for June expected at $30.0 billion.

In the markets yesterday, oil ended slightly lower after inventory reports came in a little better than expected overall. Crude inventories fell 1.4 million barrels, gasoline inventories built 1.2 million barrels, distillates built 800,000 barrels, and refinery utilization rose 0.2% to 90.2%.

The US Dollar index continued to fall on worries over subprime mortgages and the health of the US economy. It fell to a new all-time low versus the Euro, which rose above $1.3770, and the Dollar hit a new 26-year low versus the Pound above $2.0300. Losses were somewhat limited with no major economic reports to act on.

Treasury bonds fell as traders took profits from impressive gains achieved during the last two sessions, and the yield on the 10-year failed to close under 5%.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rebounded from Tuesday’s steep losses on another round of takeover news and optimism over better than expected earnings reports after a slow start so far from this quarter’s results.

Among the big names making news in the main market were Dow Jones, Citigroup, Liz Claiborne, Gerdau and Chaparral Steel, and Ventana and Roche. In the gold mining sector, Barrick’s energy projects, Almaden’s exploration update, and Newmont’s 2007 operating outlook made the news. Endeavour raised its 2007 production forecast.