From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold Prices fell Wednesday to $902.80 by late trade in Asia and remained about $10 lower in early London dealing.

But the Gold Market then took off at the New York open, steadily gained for the rest of the day, and ended at its high of the session with a gain of 2.2%.

Silver fell to $17.365 in Asia before it also took off in New York and ended near its high of $18.39 with a gain of 3%.

The Gold Price in Euros rose near €590, platinum gained $8.50 to $2016.50, and copper rose nearly 12 cents to about $4.03.

Gold and silver equities rose over 2% by lunchtime in New York, remaining near their highs into the close despite weakness in the major indices.
Oil rose to a new record intraday high at $112.21 and also made a new record closing high as US inventory stockpile numbers came in lower than expected and the Dollar resumed its fall.

Oil inventories fell 3.2 million barrels instead of an expected build of over 2 million barrels, gasoline inventories fell 3.4 million barrels, distillates fell 3.7 million barrels, and refinery utilization rose 0.6% to 83.0%.

The US Dollar index fell and Treasury bonds rose ahead of Thursday's European Central Bank meeting, expected to hold Euro rates unchanged despite wishes for the ECB to cut rates along with the Fed.

Recent high inflation readings have kept the Europeans resilient, however.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell on another warning over lower than previously expected profits in upcoming earnings reports as record high oil also kept many uneasy.

Inventories of unsold goods held by wholesale firms in the US rose 1.1% in Feb., new data showed, larger than the 0.5% rise analysts expected but smaller than Jan.'s 1.3% increase.

Thursday at 13:30 GMT brings Initial US Jobless Claims for last week – expected at 383,000 – plus the Trade Balance for February, forecast to show a $57.4 billion deficit.

The US Treasury Budget for March, due for release at 19:00 GMT, is expected to show a deficit of $70.3 billion.

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