From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com and Adrian Ash at BullionVault...

Gold Prices plunged all the way to $904.45 by early trade in London on Thursday, but rallied for most of the rest of the session to ended almost $15 off the low with a loss of 2.76% for the day.

All major European and US markets then closed for the Good Friday holiday, and London's bullion market won't re-open until Tuesday.

Ending the short-Easter week nearly 8% lower, the Gold Market suffered its greatest weekly loss – starting at Monday's new record top of $1,034 per ounce – since 1983.

Silver, in contrast, was not able to find a rebound in New York on Thursday and it ended near its low of $16.752 with a loss of 17.8% for the week.

The Gold Price in Euros dropped to a 10-week low of €594 per ounce, platinum fell to $1860, and copper lost roughly 5 cents on Thursday to about $3.61.

Gold and silver equities fell more 5% at Thursday's US open, but they then rallied back higher into the close and ended with only about 3% losses.

For the week, gold and silver mining-stock investors lost around 15%.

All told, commodity prices put in their worst performance since the CRB-Reuters index began in 1956, according to Bloomberg data. On Thursday, crude oil extended its losses as the US Dollar index continued its rebound on an official US economic survey that was not quite as horrible as expected.

The Philadelphia Fed said manufacturing activity declined in March less quickly than it did in February, helping the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rise more than 2%.

Initial US jobless claims rose faster than forecast in the week-ending 15th March.

Treasury bonds also rose in price as the strong recent demand was reported to have caused "failures to deliver" in the $6.3 trillion-a-day market for borrowing and lending US government securities.

After the Easter Weekend, next week’s economic highlights include Existing US Home Sales on Monday, Consumer Confidence on Tuesday, Durable Goods Orders and New Home Sales on Wednesday, GDP and Initial Jobless Claims on Thursday, and Personal Income and Spending, Core PCE Inflation, and Michigan Sentiment on Friday.

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