Gold Ends Monday Higher as US Treasury Sells Bonds at Record Low Yield

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Spot Gold rose $12.15 to $848.10 in early Asian trade on Monday, dropped back to $839.15 in London, and then rose to a new session high of $851.22 in New York trade.

The Gold Price then fell back off slightly into the close, but it still ended with a gain of 1.24%.

Silver climbed to $11.06 in Asia before it fell back off in London and New York and dropped as low as $10.71 by about noon EST. Silver then rallied back higher in the last hour and a half of trade, but ended as good as unchanged with a gain of 0.18%.

The Gold Price in Euros rose to about €607, platinum gained $3.50 to $848, and copper rose slightly to about $1.33.

Gold and silver equities rose over 4% at the open, but they then fell back off for most of the rest of trade and ended about 2% lower on the day.

Crude oil rose in early trade on speculation over more Opec production cuts, but it fell back off almost 6% by the close on fresh demand worries as new data showed oil consumption in China falling by 3.2% in November from a year ago.

Crude imports into the world's No. 2 energy consumer dropped to the lowest level this year.

The US Dollar index ended barely higher as the Yen weakened after the Bank of Japan warned on a prolonged recession in the world's second largest single economy.

Treasuries rose as a new auction of two-year notes attracted the lowest yield ever at 0.922%, but they ended slightly lower – perhaps because in the secondary market, few buyers willing to find such yields attractive.

US stocks fell on continued economic worries spurred by more disappointing company reports, dragging the S&P more than 1.8% lower.

There were no major US economic reports Monday. Tuesday at 13:30 GMT brings third quarter GDP (expected down 0.5%) and the Chain Deflator (expected up at 4.7%).

At 15:00 GMT comes New US Home Sales data for Nov., expected at 420,000, with Existing Home Sales expected at 4,930,000 annualized. Michigan Sentiment for December is expected better at 58.6.