From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold rose to $939.70 by midday in London on Thursday before falling back to $921.77 by early afternoon in New York.

The Gold Market then rebounded over $6 higher into the close and ended with a loss of just 0.69%. Silver rose to $18.40 and fell to $17.79 before it also rallied back higher in the last hour of trade and ended with a loss of just 1.3%.

Crude oil fell back from Wednesday’s record high as the Dollar rebounded and the US government reported oil imports fell in February, but it still ended at over $110 a barrel.

The US Dollar index rose and Treasury bonds fell as Initial Jobless Claims came in better than expected.

The US trade deficit widened much further than expected in Feb. to $62.3 billion, but the Treasury Budget deficit came in at $48.1bn for March, less than half the Feb. figure and way below forecast.

The European Central Bank left rates unchanged while the Bank of England in London lowered UK rates as expected.

The Gold Price in Euros fell near €589, platinum remained at $2016.50, and copper fell over 7 cents to about $3.95.

Gold and silver equities fell nearly 2% by about a half hour into trade, but they then slowly and steadily climbed higher for the rest of trade and ended near unchanged on the day.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P rose despite mostly poor retail sales reports as traders covered their shorts on those various retail names in "sell on the news" action.

At a luncheon Ben Bernanke said that the current level of financial distress is among the most serious since crises since World War II. When asked about similarities to the Great Depression he said that there are some, but also argued that the Fed has learned its lessons from that disaster and now will try to prevent banks from collapsing or the monetary base deflating.

Friday at 13:30 GMT brings US Import and Export Prices for March. At 15:00 GMT comes the Michigan Sentiment report for April, expected at 69.0.

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