From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold Prices shot higher in Asia on Wednesday to find nearly $15 gains as high as $891.50 before falling back off in London and dropping as low as $873.40 by early trade in New York.

The Gold Market then rallied back for most of the rest of US trade and ended with a gain of 0.21% at a new record closing high.

Silver rose alongside as high as $16.105 – and then fell as low as $15.52 – before it also rallied into the New York close and ended with a gain of 0.26% at its highest level since 1980.

Gold Priced in Euros rose above €600 per ounce, platinum gained $3 to $1550 to a new record high, palladium lost $2 to $373, and copper remained at about $3.28.

Gold and silver mining equities traded mixed, however, and ended with less than 1% gains despite a stronger bounce in the broader Wall Street indices after Tuesday's sell-off.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose slightly in morning trade before they fell off markedly mid-afternoon. They then rallied back higher into the close and ended near their highs with over 1% gains as recession talk raised expectations for more Fed interest rate cuts.

Overall, the action was enough for gold stocks in the HUI index to record a new all-time closing high.

There were no major economic reports today, but Goldman Sachs made headlines by forecasting a US recession in 2008. Thursday at 08:30 EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for last week, expected at 340,000.

At 10:00 comes the Wholesale Inventories report for November, expected to show 0.4% growth.

On Wednesday, US Treasury bond prices rose on fresh recession worries that sent the yield on the 10-year below 3.8% for the fist time since the first half of 2004.

Crude oil rose, however, finding decent gains after US stockpiles fell a much larger than expected 6.8 million barrels according to last week's data. But the energy market then fell back off to find a slight loss by the close on future demand concerns.

Gasoline inventories built 5.3 million barrels, distillates rose 1.5 million barrels, and refinery utilization rose 1.9% to 91.3%.

The US Dollar index rose strongly thanks to a headline surge in US mortgage applications reported by the MBA for last week, while both the Pound and Euro fell ahead of Thursday’s policy meetings at the Bank of England and European Central Bank.

Poor retail sales data on Wednesday is widely forecast to herald lower UK interest rates at midday.

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