Gold & Silver Both Jump as US Fed & Eurozone ECB Cut Hopes of Interest-Rate Rise

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold fell $3.80 to $1327.20 in Asia on Thursday before it rose to see a $6.55 gain at $1337.55 in early New York trade and then fell off rather markedly in midmorning trade to as low as $1325.10 a little after 10am EST.

But the Gold Price then spiked back higher midday and ended near its early afternoon high of $1355.64 with a gain of 1.6%.

Euro gold jumped to almost €992 per ounce.

Silver fell to $28.17 per ounce at the open of trade in New York before it rose to see an almost 1% gain at $28.48 by about 09am and then dropped to as low as $27.96. But the Silver Price also surged back higher midday and ended near its early afternoon high of $28.85 with a gain of 1.7%.

Both metals continued even higher in after hours access trade at the time of writing.

Platinum gained $7.88 to $1832.75, and copper waffled around its recent all-time high about $10,000.00 per metric tonne.

Gold Mining and silver equities remained near unchanged for much of the morning, but they then climbed higher throughout most of afternoon trade and ended with about 3% gains.
Oil fell and the US Dollar rose as the Euro fell after "European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said inflation expectations in the 17-nation Eurozone remain "firmly anchored", dampening speculation of an interest-rate hike.

Treasuries fell as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P largely ignored intensifying conflict in Egypt and rose to find decent gains by the close on better than expected economic data.

New data showed US productivity rising faster than expected at the end of 2010, while Unit Labor Costs fell 0.6% and Factory Orders rose. The ISM Services Index showed an unexpected acceleration in activity.

"Although economic growth will probably increase this year," said Fed chairman Ben Bernanke in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, "we expect the unemployment rate to remain stubbornly above – and inflation to remain stubbornly below – the levels that Federal Reserve policymakers have judged to be consistent over the longer term with our mandate."

Friday brings US jobs data for January. Non-farm Payrolls are expected at 163,000, the Unemployment Rate is expected at 9.5%, the Average Workweek is expected at 34.3, and Hourly Earnings are expected at 0.2%.

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