Gold Ends Tues Unchanged, Silver Jumps, as US Stock-Earnings Cut, Car Fleet Shrinks

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold traded roughly 0.5% higher in Asia and London on Tuesday, dipping and rallying back to that level by late morning in New York.

The Gold Price then fell back off in afternoon trade, ending with a gain of just 20 cents per ounce.

In Euros, the Gold Price rose to €778.

Silver fell as low as $17.47 an ounce by mid-morning in New York, but it then shot to a new session high of $17.84 by late morning and closed near that high with a gain of 1.7% from Monday.

Platinum gained $17 to $1528, and copper rose slightly to about $3.40.

Gold Mining and silver equities rose nearly 2% by late morning in New York, before they fell back off in early afternoon trade and saw slight losses at one point. Precious metal mining equities then rallied back higher into the close, and ended with over 1% gains.

Oil rose for the ninth straight session on continued cold weather and worries over rising geopolitical tensions.

The US Dollar index found slight gains as economic worries encouraged cash raising, and Treasuries also rose as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P traded mostly lower on a disappointing Pending US Home Sales report, down 16% and well below analyst forecasts of a 2% drop,

Factory Orders rose sharply for Nov., but car and light-truck sales for 2009 lagged the rate of scrapping, shrinking the United States' auto fleet from a record 250 million to 246m according to the non-profit Earth Policy Institute (EPI).

Widely-followed Goldman Sachs analyst Meredith Whitney again cut her US earnings-per-share estimate for 2010.

Wednesday at 08:15 EST brings the private-sector ADP Payroll Report for Dec., expected down 75,000. Then at 10:00 comes the ISM Services report for last month, expected at 50.5.

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