Gold & Silver Add 0.6% as US Retail Sales Shrink, Import Prices Jump

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold rose as much as $8.85 to $1145.40 in early Asian trade on Thursday, before it fell in London to see a loss as low as $1130.78 an ounce by mid-morning in New York.

Gold then rallied back higher in the last couple hours of trade, and ended near its earlier high with a gain of 0.6%.

Silver also ended  0.6% higher vs. the Dollar, earlier rising to $18.70 before dipping to $18.33 in London.

The Gold Price in Euros rose to €788 an ounce.

Gold Mining and silver equities fell over 1% by late morning before they rebounded in afternoon trade, but they still ended with slight losses.

Platinum gained $37 to $1607, and copper fell slightly to about $3.38.

Oil and the US Dollar index fell slightly after Retail Sales for Dec. came in worse than expected.

Shrinking 0.3% overall – and down 0.2% excluding auto sales – US retail sales had been expected to extend Nov.'s 1.8% growth.

Weekly US jobless claims also came in worse than expected, while Import Prices for last month showed an 8.6% rise year-on-year thanks to the surge in crude oil.

Treasuries added to early gains after an auction of 30-year notes saw a high yield of 4.640% with a bid-to-cover ratio of 2.68.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose on hopes for strong earnings reports.

Friday sees US Consumer Price Inflation data for December, expected at 0.2% month on month, with Core CPI (excl. food and fuel) expected up 0.1%.

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for January is expected at 12.00. Then at 09:15 EST comes Capacity Utilization for December (expected at 71.8%) and Industrial Production (expected up 0.6%). Just before 10am comes Michigan Sentiment for January, expected at 74.0.

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