The Metals: Gold rose about 0.5% to $847.25 at the New York open and then plummeted to as low as $818.60 by 9:30AM EST before it rebounded back near $840 by late morning, but it then fell back off into the close and ended with a loss of 1.74%. Silver fell to $10.83 by 9:30AM EST before it rebounded to see a 60 cent gain at as high as $11.72 by late morning in New York, but it also fell back off in the last couple of hours of trade and ended with a gain of just 1%. Euro gold fell to about €598, platinum lost $19.50 to $951.50, and copper gained roughly 5 cents to about $2.70. Gold and silver equities rose over 7% by late morning, but they then fell back off for the rest of the day and ended with only about 1% gains. The Economy: Next week’s economic highlights include FOMC Minutes and Consumer Credit on Tuesday, Pending Home Sales on Wednesday, Initial Jobless Claims and Wholesale Inventories on Thursday, and Export and Import Prices and the Trade Balance on Friday. The Markets: Oil ended just slightly lower on worries over demand going forward. The U.S. dollar index fell and treasuries rose as the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P eventually fell after the house passed the bailout bill 263 to 171. All of those moves were opposite earlier in the day on hopes that the bill would be passed, but all markets reversed after the fact on worries that the plan will now actually work to solve all of the serious problems facing the markets. Many also expect a fed rate cut of at least 25 basis points sometime soon. Among the big names making news in the market Friday were Wells Fargo and Wachovia, Toyota, UBS, Boeing, and General Growth. The Commentary: “December Gold closed down 11.1 at 833.2. This was 8.2 up from the low and 13.8 off the high. December Silver finished up 0.205 at 11.325, 0.365 off the high and 0.1 up from the low. The gold market waffled around both sides of unchanged and in the wake of the US monthly payroll report the trade forged a quick $30 trading range. Clearly higher US equity prices and an apparent passage of the House bailout package served to knock some flight to quality bulls from the gold market. It also goes without saying that ongoing gains in the US Dollar added to the weakness in gold prices. Surprisingly the gold market and a host of other physical commodity markets weren't severely undermined in the wake of the weaker than expected US readings and that might have been the result of the mostly steady US unemployment rate reading. The silver market clearly diverged with the gold market during the action Friday, as the silver market seemed to adopt the physical commodity posture while the gold market was under pressure because of declining economic uncertainty. With the copper market managing a week ending bounce, it is possible that action inspired some similar short covering in the silver market.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

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