Gold Drops as Dollar Gains Ahead of European Rate Slashing
From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...
The Gold Price traded mostly slightly lower in Asia and London on Wednesday and fell as much as $19.20 to $763.70 by 10:00 in New York.
Spot Gold then rallied back near unchanged by late morning EST, but it fell back off into the close and ended with a loss of 1.7% for the session.
Silver fell $0.25 to $9.27 by the US opening, before it rose to see a 19¢ gain at $9.72 per ounce by late morning. It also fell back off into the close and ended with a gain of just 0.52%.
The Gold Price in Euros fell to about €608, platinum lost $6 to $796, and copper fell nearly 5 cents to about $1.53.
Oil ended near a new four-year low despite an unexpected decline in US crude stockpile inventories as traders continued to worry about tepid demand.
The US Dollar index rose as other world currencies fell ahead of Thursday's widely expected rates slashing from the Bank of England and European Central Bank (ECB).
Treasury bonds rose. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell markedly at the open, but all three indices rallied to find decent gains at the close after the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a huge jump in mortgage applications thanks to the large drop in rates driven by government programs.
Gold and silver equities fell about 6% an hour into New York trade before they rallied back near unchanged by late morning. Gold Mining and silver equities then fell back off into the close and ended with roughly 3% losses for the day.
On the data front, the private-sector ADP Payrolls count dropped 250,000 for November, worse than analyst forecasts of 205,000 and beating Oct.'s 179,000 job losses.
US Productivity came in stronger than expected for the third quarter, but "Economic activity has weakened across the United States since early October, while price pressures have eased with declines in retail and energy prices," the Federal Reserve said in its Beige Book of economic analysis.
It "portrayed declining conditions in most areas of the economy."