Gold Bounces 0.4%, Silver Slips as US Debt Auction Draws Few Bids

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold rose almost 1% in Asia on Thursday, before it fell back to almost unchanged in London and then rose as much as $11.60 to a new session high of $1132.00 by about 10:00 EST in New York.

The Gold Price then fell back off for most of the rest of trade and ended with a gain of just 0.4%.

Silver climbed as high as $17.45 by mid-morning in New York, but it also fell back off into the close and ended near its late session low of $17.11 with a loss of 0.2%.

The Gold Price in Euros rose to €765 an ounce.

Gold Mining and silver equities rose over 1% at the open and then quickly fell back off to see about 1% losses about an hour into trade, but they then rallied back near unchanged by mid-afternoon and ended with only slight losses on the day.

Platinum gained $13 to $1413.50, and copper fell another couple of cents to about $3.08.

Oil fell slightly on continued worries over future energy demand.

The US Dollar index remained near unchanged on mixed economic data. Home foreclosures showed an 8% drop for Nov., while the US Trade and Budget Deficits both showed a sharp fall, but Initial Jobless Claims for last week were higher than expected and sharply higher from late Nov.

Treasury bonds fell after a horrible 30-year Treasury auction drew a yield of 4.52% with a bid to cover of just 2.45.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose modestly.

Friday at 08:30 EST brings US Import and Import Prices for November, plus Retail Sales for November expected at 0.6%.

Excluding autos, sales are expected up 0.4%.

At 09:55 comes Michigan Sentiment for December, expected at 68.9, and at 10:00 is the Business Inventories report for October, expected down 0.2%.

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