Gold Gains Together with Stocks & Bonds as Dollar Slips, Swiss Begin Currency Devaluation

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold and silver traded higher in Asia and London on Thursday, rising to $917.60 and $12.95 an ounce by the New York opening.

Both the silver and Gold Price then slipped back, but they jumped in late US trade and ended near their highs of $930.45 and $13.08 respectively with gains of 1.4% and 1.0% for the day.

The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P indices also rose sharply – adding an average 4.0% to Wall Street's top 500 stocks on strong volume – after new data showed US retail sales (excluding auto-sales) rising 0.7% in Feb. from the month before. Business inventories shrank by 1.1%.

Treasury bonds also rose after an auction of $11 billion of 30-year bonds met strong demand.

The Gold Price in Euros meantime rose to €728 before drifting back, while platinum lost $4 to $1043.50, and copper remained at about $1.62.

Gold Mining and silver equities rose over 3% at the start of New York trade and remained near their highs into the close.

Crude oil rose over 10% as rumors surfaced that Russia may join the Opec oil cartel in cutting production. Speculation that Opec will cut is production further at their meeting this weekend also helped add to gains.

The US Dollar rose versus the Swiss Franc after the Swiss National Bank cut its interest rates and announced an intention to buy foreign currencies and bonds, selling its own currency to depress its value and avoid domestic deflation.

The Dollar Index fell overall, however, as the Euro found even larger gains in reaction to the Swiss policy shift.

Friday at 13:30 GMT brings US Import and Export Prices for February, plus the Trade Balance for January – expected to show a deficit of $38.2 billion.