Gold & Silver Slide Overnight as Wall Street Slips on New $700Bn Bank Rescue

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Spot Gold fell as much as $18.45 to $950.80 by late trade in Asia on Wednesday before it climbed back higher in London.

Rising as high as $978.20 to see a gain of $8.95 a little after 10:00 in New York, Gold Bullion then fell back off in the last couple of hours of trade and ended with loss of 0.5% for the session.

Silver followed a similar pattern, ending with a loss of 0.6%.

Both metals then fell almost 2% further in after-hours access trade.

The Gold Price in Euros remained near €757, platinum gained $8 to $1049, and copper gained nearly 4 cents more to about $1.52.

Gold Mining and silver equities rose over 3% by midmorning, but they then fell back off for the rest of the day and ended with over 1% losses on the day.

Crude oil rose over 6% on signs of increasing demand and reports of US inventory stockpiles at lower levels than expected.

Crude inventories rose just 700,000 barrels last week, while gasoline inventories fell 3.4 million barrels, and distillates rose 800,000 barrels.

The Dollar meantime strengthened after Fed chairman Ben Bernanke finished his two-day testimony before the House Financial Services Committee and gave his Monetary Policy Report, while Treasuries fell markedly as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P reversed morning losses.

The major indices then fell again, however, ending around 1% lower as details for President Obama's new stimulus plans - referenced during his Tuesday speech to Congress – began to be released.

New York's biggest banks are being granted immediate access to a further $700 billion in emergency loans. The Treasury Department will gain the right to convert these injections into common stocks at a 10% discount to their pre-Feb. 9th price.