From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold remained
near unchanged in Asia before it began to rise in London
and topped $676 at about 10:45AM EST in New
York, but it then fell back off slightly into the
close and ended about $2 off its high with a gain of 0.58%. Silver rose over $13.15 in morning New York trade before it
also fell back off slightly into the close, but it still ended with a gain of
0.46%.

Euro gold
rose near €489, platinum gained $3 to $1,284, palladium gained $3 to $361, and
copper fell a few cents to about $3.62.

Gold and
silver equities steadily rose throughout most of trade and saw about 4% gains
by mid-afternoon before they fell back off in the last hour of trade, but they
still ended with roughly 3% gains.

Also
making economic news today was a sharp rise in mortgage applications and a
National Association of Realtors report that downwardly revised its home sales
estimates for 2007. Tomorrow at 8:30AM
EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 8/04 expected at 310,000.

Oil initially
rose after inventory data came in worse than expected, but it fell off to find
slight losses by the close as a near record amount of longs in the market
seemed to take profits and exit their positions. Crude inventories fell a large 4.1 million
barrels, gasoline inventories fell 1.7 million barrels rather than an expected
build, distillates built 1.0 million barrels, and refinery utilization
surprisingly fell 2.3% to 91.3%.

The U.S.
dollar index fell back near a 15-year low around the 80.00 level as China has
recently been threatening its “nuclear option” of dumping its vast dollar
reserves.

Treasuries
also fell markedly on worries that China may dump some of its large
treasury holdings.