The Metals: Gold fell $7.75 to $761.80 by about 8AM EST before it rose to see a $16.39 gain $785.94 by late morning, but it then fell back off into the close and ended with a loss of 0.62%. Silver rose 10 cents to $9.68 in London before it fell in early New York trade to see a 26 cent loss at as low as $9.32 by about 9AM EST, but it then rallied back higher for most of the rest of trade and ended with a loss of just 0.68%. Euro gold fell to about €598, platinum lost $1 to $795, and copper fell over 8 cents to about $1.45. Gold and silver equities rose over 3% in morning trade, but they then fell back off in afternoon action along with the major indices and ended with over 3% losses. CEOs from the big 3 automakers testified again before the Senate Banking Committee today with hopes of receiving as much as $34 billion from the US taxpayer to save the companies from bankruptcy. Hearings continue before the House committee tomorrow before a potential bill will be proposed before congress. Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings November’s jobs data. Nonfarm Payrolls are expected at -325,000, the Unemployment Rate is expected at 6.8%, Hourly Earnings are expected at 0.2%, and the Average Workweek is expected at 33.6. At 3PM is Consumer Credit for October expected at $1.5 billion. Oil fell markedly once again near a new four year low on concern that harsh economic conditions will continue to cut into demand. The U.S. dollar index fell, treasuries rose, and the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P sold off rather notably by the close on worries over tomorrow’s jobs data and whether or not the automakers will get a bailout. Among the big names making news in the market today were Merck, DuPont, Williams-Sonoma, Wal-Mart, GM, Chrysler, AT&T, Legg Mason, Toll Brothers, and Prudential. The Commentary: “February Gold closed down 5 at 765.5. This was 1 up from the low and 12.5 off the high. March Silver finished down 0.07 at 9.52, 0.13 off the high and 0.15 up from the low. The gold market waffled around both sides of unchanged on Thursday as the ebb and flow of the US equity market boosted gold prices and then seemed to undermine gold prices later in the trading session. One might have expected weakness in the US Dollar to provide some support to the gold market but apparently the fear of too much slowing temporarily dominating over the typical currency market influence. It is also possible that a series of layoff announcements and fears of the Friday morning numbers prompted some traders to simply move to the sidelines. Like the gold market, the silver market also waffled around both sides of unchanged but it was clear that silver and a host of other physical commodity markets were coming back under deflationary selling pressure ahead of what is expected to be a very important US Unemployment report on Friday morning. With copper and crude oil under aggressive pressure and even the grain markets giving up big ground, it seemed as if broad based selling was dragging down anything physical.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

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