Gold jumped over $15 to above $920 between 3 and 4AM EST before it dropped back near $910 a little after 10AM in New York, but it then climbed to a new session high of $929.40 in afternoon trade and ended near that high with an impressive gain of 2.44%. Silver followed a similar pattern and ended near its high of $12.66 with a gain of 3.66%. Euro gold rose to about €722, platinum gained $17.50 to $983, and copper added a penny to about $1.46. Gold and silver equities opened up over 2% higher before they dropped to see over 2% losses about an hour into trade and then rose to find slight gains by mid-afternoon, but they then fell back off in late trade as the major indices dropped to new lows and the miners ended with about 1% losses on the day. Next week’s economic highlights include Personal Income and Spending, Construction Spending, and the ISM Index on Monday, Pending Home Sales on Tuesday, ADP Employment and ISM Services on Wednesday, Initial Jobless Claims, Productivity, Unit Labor Costs, and Factory Orders on Thursday, and January’s jobs data and Consumer Credit on Friday. Oil rose on hopes for rebounding demand as GDP was not as bad as expected. The U.S. dollar index also rose on the better than expected GDP report that reinforced the recent belief that the US may not be as bad off as most of the rest of the world. Treasuries seemed to redeem a bit of their historical safe haven status as they rose slightly at times while stocks fell, but bonds fell back off by the close on worries over the markets ability to absorb the massive amounts of supply due to come on to the market in order to fund various bailout/stimulus programs. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell roughly 2% on continued economic worries and on word that the “bad bank” plan to take over toxic assets may get put on hold. Among the big names making news in the market Friday were Exxon Mobil, Gannett, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, and Invesco. The Commentary: “Dear CIGAs, Gold buying accelerated as Europe opened for trading in the overnight hours here in the States with the currency crisis the main factor propelling European based gold prices sharply higher. Paper is definitely OUT in Europe and metal is in. I suppose what is so revealing about this is that ii marks an abrupt reversal from a pattern that has been seen for most of the better part of the entire near-9 year bull market in gold. Asian buying would take the metal higher whereupon the return of Europe based traders to their desks, it would be summarily derailed around the 2:00 AM CST period. What is happening now is that the price is accelerating higher near or about this hour. It has become obvious that a sea-change in sentiment towards the yellow metal has occurred in Europe and particularly in Britain. With no where to put money for a safe haven as bonds become suspect, gold is seeing significant hedge fund activity which is beating back the incessant selling by the bullion banks. That buying drove Gold priced in Euro terms to another brand new, all-time high for the London PM Fix at €715.620. Euro gold has taken out €700, quite a significant feat! So much for the deflationists’ arguments… Once trade moved into New York, the bullion banks resurfaced in force and attempt to stem the tide. Today they initially showed their hand near and above the $920 level. Their footprint is more than obvious for those who can read price charts. However, in what must have been quite a stunner to these bullies of the sand box, they were beaten back out of their castle as the bulls pushed right through their picket lines. They have been feverishly attempting to stem the rise near $920 as failure means the highs made back in September-October last year around the $940 level would then be in play. If those give way, $1000 is a given and they know it. The fly in the gold ointment however is once again, the mining shares which were whacked well off their session highs in a near perfect copy of Monday’s performance. The battle for 310 in the HUI and 127 in the XAU is quite fierce as the trapped shorts seem to be literally mounting a life or death defense of those levels. So far the bulls simply cannot dislodge them from their lairs but the day is not done yet and the longs are also showing some mettle for a change as they push the indices back up off the session lows. A strong closing breach of those levels, especially coming at the end of the week and thus painting a very strong showing on the weekly price charts, is something that the shorts are desperately trying to prevent. They know that a technical breakout will bring even more money into the gold shares which will overwhelm them and that is the reason we are seeing such fierce opposition coming in near those levels. I am sure that they are quite concerned about the reported record inflows in the largest gold ETF – GLD. That is why observing this kind of fierce and determined selling in the face of what is evidently a significant move into all things gold is so noteworthy. Just who sells like this and does so in such huge size when the path of least resistance is up? Technically gold has CONFIRMED yesterday’s bounce off of the top of the triangular consolidation formation – the downsloping trendline which it broke out above earlier this week and then came back down and touched before ricocheting sharply upward off of that same line. The price action in this market is textbook and its behavior is more like I have come to observe in a normal, freely-traded market, bullion bank capping efforts notwithstanding. The fact that it has been performing so well-behaved tells me that serious buying has come into this market, buying which makes itself known on any price dips. Simply put – the safe haven flow into bonds has completely dried up and gold has now become the go-to vehicle. (I will show this on the Gold/Bond ratio chart which I will send up later this afternoon or evening). If the funds will stick to their guns, there is no reason that they cannot dislodge the bullion banks out of their defensive lines since the fundamentals are on the side of the longs. Keep in mind that the gold universe is still rather small in size and that it does not take all that much money to push it around.”- Dan Norcini, More at JSMineset.com “April Gold closed up 21.9 at 928.4. This was 12.4 up from the low and 2.4 off the high. March Silver finished up 0.42 at 12.565, 0.015 off the high and 0.175 up from the low. The gold market continued to rise in the face of strength in the Dollar on Friday. As suggested in the mid day coverage today even the US President admits that conditions in the US are severe and with the "Bad Bank" plans seemingly calling for backing of up to $1 trillion the flight to quality argument clearly remains in the forefront of market psychology. Some players in the gold market even suggested that the not as bad as expected US GDP reading was another reason to buy gold and that highlights the bulls capacity to spin most of the data flow into a positive. Some traders even suggested that the fear of labor problems and subsequent strikes at US and UK refineries were serving to lift energy prices and that in turn could also be another anxiety issue that serves to push buyers toward gold. The silver market remains in a tight flight to quality track with the gold market. As suggested in the gold coverage ongoing strength in the Dollar and somewhat better than expected US economic readings didn't seem to have much of a limiting force on silver prices during the trade today. While the silver market could have been initially undermined by the weakness in copper early in the trading session today, as the session progressed even the copper and platinum markets managed to climb back into positive ground and that highlights general favor toward all the metals markets.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting GATA Posts:

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