Gold & Silver Jump into Easter Weekend as World's Largest Bank Begins China Gold Promotion

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Ahead of the long Easter weekend, the Gold Price saw slight losses in Asia on Thursday, and modest gains in London, before it shot markedly higher in morning New York trade.

The Gold Price ended near its noontime high of $1127.90 with a gain of 1.0% for the day, some 1.9% higher from the previous week's close.

The Gold Price in Euros rose to €829 an ounce, not far from its all-time high of €835 set on March 2nd.

Silver Prices jumped as high as $17.98 by 10:00 ET, before they fell back off in the last few hours of trade, but still ended with a gain of 2.1%.

For the week, silver added almost 6.0%.

Platinum gained $29.50 to $1667 on Friday, and copper gained a few cents to a new 20-month high at about $3.58.

Gold Mining and silver equities rose throughout most of trade and ended with roughly 4% gains on Thursday, some 6% on average for the week.

Oil climbed near $85 a barrel as the US Dollar index and Treasuries fell after mostly better than expected economic data sent the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P modestly higher.

On the political front, the Federal Reserve released details of the securities it bought to aid Bear Stearns's takeover by J.P.Morgan in March 2008, after Bloomberg News had sued for the information.

In London, the UK Treasury released papers under a Freedom of Information request that showed the Bank of England advising against selling half the nation's gold reserves in 1999 – advice that was ignored by the current government.

Mining-backed marketing group the World Gold Council meantime announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with China's ICBC – the world's largest and most profitable bank – to better promote gold ownership and trading in China, the world's second largest private gold consumer market.

New research from the WGC this week forecast that Chinese gold demand could double by 2020.

New data in the US on Thursday showed Initial Jobless Claims in the US falling once more last week. Construction Spending slowed its rate of decline in Feb., and the ISM Manufacturing survey improved faster than analysts expected.

Friday at 08:30 ET brings March's jobs data, Non-Farm Payrolls expected to show a 190,000 rise and the Unemployment Rate expected at 9.7%.

Please Note: European, US and Canadian markets are closed in observance of Good Friday.

London will remain closed on Monday.

Next week's US economic highlights include ISM Services and Pending Home Sales on Monday; Federal Reserve meeting minutes on Tuesday; Consumer Credit on Wednesday; Initial Jobless Claims on Thursday, and Wholesale Inventories on Friday.

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