Gold Ends Week 8% Lower as US Sheds Half-Million Jobs, Dollar & Stocks Rise

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

Gold rose about 1% to $772.70 in London on Friday before it fell hard on news of half-a-million job losses in the United States last month.

Gold Bullion then rallied but still finished the day 1.67% lower. For the week, gold ended 8.3% down.

Silver rose to $9.57 by late trade in Asia and fell to as low as $9.13 by lunchtime in New York before it also rallied back higher in afternoon trade to end with a loss of 1.26%.

The Gold Price in Euros fell to about €594, platinum lost $12 to $783, and copper fell nearly 10 cents more to about $1.35.

“Paper gold at the Comex continues its disappearing act,” writes Dan Norcini at JSMineset.com, “as more and more longs throw in the towel and close things out for the year. I should note here that volume in Comex Gold Futures is absolutely horrendous. dropping under 100,000 per day over the last few days.

“Toss in a collapse in open interest and it is pretty easy to see that what we are witnessing is a destruction of liquidity. Yet gold is only down 27% off its peak price [in Dollars]. Even with all the paper selling at the Comex, gold has withstood the orgy of redemption related selling pretty well. And we know that demand for the real deal, the actual yellow metal is phenomena.”

Gold Mining and silver equities fell roughly 9% meantime Friday, rallying back higher into the close and ending mixed and near unchanged in volatile trade.

The US jobless count showed a leap of 533,000 for November, the sharpest fall since 1974, while new consumer credit for the month before was actually paid down, contracting by $3.5bn against Sept.'s $6.9bn growth.

Wall Street rose sharply to spite the jobs data, but lost 2.5% for the week. US Treasury bonds rose 4% in price, pushing yields lower from Monday, while the Dollar index also rose.

Next week’s economic highlights include Pending Home Sales on Tuesday, Wholesale Inventories and the Treasury Budget on Wednesday, Export and Import Prices, Initial Jobless Claims, and the Trade Balance on Thursday, and PPI, Retail Sales, Business Inventories, and Michigan Sentiment on Friday.