Gold Ends Week 9% Higher, Gold Miners Leap 23% as Dollar Dips, Auto Bail-Out Fails

From Chris Mullen at GoldSeek.com...

The Gold Price fell as much as $19.40 an ounce to $807.35 in Asia on Friday, before rallying in London and morning New York trade unchanged at $828.65.

Spot Gold then fell back off slightly into the close and ended with a loss of 0.92% for the day.

For the week, Gold Prices rose almost 9% vs. the Dollar and recorded their highest ever weekly close vs. the British Pound as Sterling Sank to Record Lows on the forex market.

Silver saw a 44 cent loss at $9.99 at about 8:30AM EST before it rallied to as high as $10.355 by late morning in New York, but it also fell back off into the close and ended with a loss of 2.2%.

The Gold Price in Euros slipped to €615 on Friday – up 3.3% for the week – while platinum lost $16.50 to $813.50, trading below gold for the first time since 2005. Copper fell over 8 cents to about $1.41.

In Washington, meantime, the Senate rejected the auto bailout plan late Thursday, but the White House and Treasury implied Friday they will use TARP funds to prevent an automaker collapse for the time being.

Oil fell as much as 7% in early Friday trade on worries over the demise of the US auto bailout plan before it cut its losses on renewed hopes that something will be arranged, but it still ended with an over 3% loss on the day.

The US Dollar index ended slightly lower and Treasuries closed with a small gain while the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P eventually found marginal gains to close the week unchanged.

Gold Mining and silver equities opened up about 2% lower before they rebounded to see over 4% gains by about and hour and a half into trade and then fell back off a bit by early afternoon, but they still ended with roughly 3% gains.

For the week, the XAU index of gold miner stocks added 23%.

On the data front, US Producer Prices fell more sharply than expected in Nov., but excluding “volatile” fuel and food, the core PPI rose 0.1% month-on-month. US Retail Sales meantime dropped 1.8%.

Next week’s economic highlights include the NY Empire State Index, Net Foreign Purchases, Capacity Utilization, and Industrial Production on Monday, CPI, Building Permits, Housing Starts, and the FOMC policy announcement on Tuesday, and Initial Jobless Claims, Leading Economic Indicators, and the Philadelphia Fed on Thursday.