Gold Ends Monday at New Record High; South African Gold Miners Sink as Power Outage Continues
From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...
Gold Prices quickly moved above $920 in Asia on Monday, before dropping back to as low as $915.13 in London.
But the Gold Market then rose to fresh highs in New York trade, and it closed the session with a gain of 1.80% at a new all-time closing high. Gold had earlier set a new intraday record of $929.45 per ounce.
Silver rose to over $16.55 in Asia and fell to $16.33 in London, but it then made a new 27 year intraday high of $16.71 in New York and closed just a few cents off that high with a gain of 1.65%.
The Gold Price in Euros rose to about €627, platinum gained $49 to $1721 to a new record high, palladium gained $5 to $385, and copper remained at about $3.22.
US gold and silver equities fell slightly in the first hour of trade along with the major indices, but they then steadily rose for most of the rest of trade and ended with about 1.5% gains.
Over in Johannesburg, South Africa, in contrast, the JSE Gold index of local gold miners dropped almost 6% for the day as a power outage continued to block all current operations and threaten future exploration in the world's No.2 producer nation.
On the economic front, New US Home Sales fell 4.7% in December to a near 13-year low after November’s plunge, and sales were down 40.7% compared to December 2006 said the Commerce Dept. Tuesday at 08:30 EST brings Durable Goods Orders for December expected at 1.5% and at 10:00 is Consumer Confidence for Jan., expected at 87.0.
Back in Monday's action, crude oil fell in early trade on worries about the economy and falling demand, but it rose to find a small gain by the close on hopes that the Fed will cut interest rates by a large amount to help stimulate the economy.
The US Dollar index fell while Treasuries and the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose on those rate-cut hopes. Fed fund futures currently expect a 94% chance for a cut of 50 basis points.
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