Gold & Silver Dive 2.6%, Stocks End Lower Again, as Bernanke & Geithner Launch $200Bn Credit Program

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

The Gold Price fell as much as $33.65 to $904.95 by noon in New York on Tuesday, while European and US stocks bounced from their recent 12% slump.

Silver dropped as much as $0.63 to $12.42 an ounce, but both metals rallied back in the last hour and a half of trade, still ending with a loss of 2.6% each for the session.

Treasury bonds – along with the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P – then ended modestly lower, as traders digested Congressional testimony from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury secretary Tim Geithner, including new details of the $200bn "TALF" financial rescue program to unblock credit markets.

The US Dollar index ended slightly higher while oil rebounded from Monday's huge losses on expectations of another output cut from the Opec oil cartel.

The Gold Price in Euros fell to about €726, platinum lost $40.50 to $1026, and copper gained nearly 9 cents to about $1.60.

Gold Mining and silver equities traded mostly lower in morning trade and then rose to see roughly 4% gains by mid-afternoon before they fell back off into the close, but they still ended about 3% higher on the day.

New data showed Pending Home Sales for Jan. down 7.7% below Dec.'s figure, way worse than the 3.5% decline expected.

Wednesday at 08:15 EST brings the private-sector ADP Employment payrolls report for Feb. – expected  down 630,000 – followed by the ISM Services report, expected at 41.0.

At 2pm EST comes the release of the Fed's Beige Book of economic analysis.