Gold Bounces Hard into Friday's Close, Ends the Week 7% Down as Stock Sell-Off Worsens

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold Prices fell $32.90 or 4.6% to a new 13-month low at $681.15 by midday Friday in London, but then fiercely rallied back higher in New York and rose to as high as $749 before closing with a gain of 2.2%.

For the week, Gold Bullion still ended 7% down.

Silver dropped 86 cents or 9.1% to $8.63 and rose to see an over 1% gain at $9.587 by early afternoon in New York before it fell back off a bit in the last hour of trade and ended with a loss of 2.3%.

The Gold Price in Euros rose to about €576, platinum gained $4.50 to $793.50, and copper fell another 12 cents to about $1.68.

Gold and silver equities rose over 5% by late morning and remained nicely higher in afternoon trade despite substantial losses in the major indices.

Oil pretty much ignored OPEC’s 1.5 million barrel production cut and instead followed world equities lower on global recession fears to close at its lowest since May 2007.

The US Dollar index continued to receive safe haven inflows along with the Japanese Yen, seeing most gains versus the British Pound and Euro as a negative Q3 GDP reading for the UK reinforced the view that Europe and surrounding nations are even worse off than the US heading forward.

US Treasury bonds fell despite their typical role as a safe haven asset as worries persist over inflation down the road and also the need to issue more and more debt to fund programs aimed at solving the credit crisis while buyers of US bonds seem to becoming more and more sparse.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P again saw massive losses along with most of the rest of the world on concerns over a global recession or worse. Futures were halted before the US market open as they were all limit down, but stocks did open relatively orderly and the major indices hit new 5 and a half year lows before they closed over 3% lower on the day when all was said and done.

On the economic front, US leading indicators came in stronger than expected on Friday, and existing home sales for Sept. beat forecasts. But initial jobless claims for the previous week rose once again.

Next week’s economic highlights include New Home Sales on Monday, Consumer Confidence on Tuesday, Durable Goods Orders and the fed’s policy statement on Wednesday, GDP and Initial Jobless Claims on Thursday, and the Employment Cost Index, Personal Income and Spending, Chicago PMI, and Michigan Sentiment on Friday.