Gold Prices Hit $1814, Downgrade Fears Hit France

Chris Mullen at GoldSeek wraps up Wednesday's action...

Gold Prices saw roughly 1% gains in Asia and London on Wednesday before advancing even higher in New York and hitting a record high of $1796.49 per ounce.  The Gold Price then spiked to $1814 per ounce at the start of Thursday's Asian trade.

Euro Gold Prices also climbed to a new record high at about €1257 per ounce.

Silver Prices rose to as high as $39.469 and ended with a gain of 3.91%.

Silver and Gold Mining stocks rose throughout most of trade and ended with about 3% gains.

Platinum gained $11 to $1758.25, and copper dropped 8 cents to about $3.89.

Oil rose after the Energy Information Administration reported that crude inventories fell 5.2 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell 1.6 million barrels, and distillates fell 700,000 barrels.

The US Dollar rose as the Euro fell on fears that France's credit rating may be downgraded.

President Nicolas Sarkozy cut short his vacation and pledged to slash France's huge debts, but rising concerns about a possible cut to the country's credit rating helped send bank shares plunging Wednesday afternoon.

Worries that France would lose its triple A rating sparked the selloff, which built momentum on rumors that the banks' financial health was in danger.

Credit Agricole ended 11.8% down. Societe Generale said it "categorically denies" all market rumors, but its shares closed 14.7% lower. Its market value has now fallen from over 40 billion Euros at the beginning of July to 17 billion euros Wednesday afternoon.

US Treasuries extended higher after Wednesday's $24 billion 10-year note auction sold at a high yield of 2.140% with a bid to cover of 3.22.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell over 4% more on worries over European debt and slow economic growth.

Among the big names making news in the market Wednesday were Groupon, Bank of New York Mellon, S&P, HSBC, and PepsiCo.

Thursday at 8:30am EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 8/06 expected at 409,000 and the Trade Balance for June expected at -$48.0 billion.

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