Gold & Silver Slip Overnight as Oil Drops 11% in Three Days

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold fell 1% to $952.85 ahead of Thursday's US open, before rallying back higher to see almost 2% gains at $978.90 by lunchtime in New York.

Both Gold and silver then fell back off into the close, but gold still ended with a gain of 0.84% while silver ended with a loss of 0.27%.

Oil was up and down yet again and ultimately ended markedly lower for the third day in a row as easing supply concerns add to speculation over demand destruction.

Crude lost more than $15 per barrel – some 11% – over the last three days, the largest slide since 2003. Natural gas fell over 7% to below $11 after US stockpile inventories built much faster than expected.

The US Dollar index fell in early trade on fresh inflation talk from the European Central Bank, but it rose by the close on better than expected US housing data that also sent Treasuries lower.

New US home-building projects begun in June showed a surprise 9.1% rise, said a government report. But new housing starts would have recorded a 4% decline if a change in New York City building codes were discounted.

There are no major economic reports due out on Friday.

Higher earnings reports sent the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P higher at Thursday's opening, but all three indices soon fell back off from roughly 1% gains to trade slightly lower.

Silver and gold then fell more than 1% in after hours access trade.

The Gold Price in Euros rose to about €612, platinum lost to $35.50 to $1889, and copper gained roughly 6 cents to about $3.73.

Gold and silver equities fell nearly 1% at the open before they quickly rose to see about 2% gains, but they then fell back off for most of the rest of trade and ended as much as 2% lower.

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