GOLD PRICE NEWS – The gold price bounced back toward $1,425 per ounce after sinking as low as $1,515 per ounce early Thursday morning. The price of gold rallied after a flurry of weaker than expected economic data. Initial jobless claims rose 424,000 versus an estimate of 404,000, demonstrating that the labor market remains listless. Additionally, the Commerce Department released revised first quarter GDP figures that missed analyst expectations. GDP grew at an annualized rate of 1.8% in Q1, missing the consensus estimate of 2.2%. Precious metals prices rose as investors and traders priced in a continuation of easy money from the U.S. Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, the price of gold advanced to $1,526 per ounce, its fourth consecutive day of gains. Gold prices were bolstered by ongoing sovereign debt concerns in Greece and worries that global growth was set to slow. Silver outperformed the gold price for a second straight day, climbing $1.22, or 3.3%, to $37.89 per ounce. The rally in the price of gold and silver coincided with further weakness in the euro currency, which fell back toward 1.40 against the U.S. dollar. Strength in the gold price and weakness in the euro came after the European Union’s Fisheries Commissioner, Greece’s Maria Damanaki, warned that “The scenario of removing Greece from the euro is now on the table… I am obliged to speak openly. We have a historical responsibility to see the dilemma clearly: either we agree with our borrowers on a program of tough sacrifices with results … or we return to the drachma.” Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou tried to reassure the nation that Ms. Damanaki’s opinion is not shared by most policymakers. “We have achieved very difficult targets in a critical time, and this is what we must continue,” Papandreou stated. “On the government’s side, we are absolutely determined … to remain participants in the core of the European Union.” Ongoing concerns over a possible Greek debt restructuring led to heightened demand for gold and investments tied to the gold price. Gold mining stocks have begun to recover from double-digit year-to-date losses. Newmont Mining (NEM), the only gold producer in the S&P 500, has rallied 2.8% this week on the back of stronger gold prices. Speculation resurfaced after Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads a group of euro zone finance ministers, told reporters that “Greece has to launch other structural reforms in order to enhance the growth perspective…if all those conditions are met then we cannot exclude a re-profiling, meaning there could be a lengthening of the payback period of the loans and a there could a reduction of the interest.” Commenting on the Greek crisis and its implications for the gold price, Dennis Gartman wrote in the latest edition of The Gartman Letterthat gold has transformed from a “mere commodity” to a “reservable currency.” While he acknowledged that the gold price may be overbought in the short term, Gartman argued that “this may become rather astoundingly more overbought in the days and weeks ahead.” “The ‘trump card’ currency of choice is gold,” Gartman continued, “and in all likelihood it shall become even more readily embraced, not less so in the days and weeks ahead as Europe’s problems worsen rather than turn for the better.” Analysts at VTB Capital in London offered bullish commentary on the gold price as well, stating in a report that “We think that gold will remain well supported in the short term amid small-scale safe haven buying, and still in the absence of a substantial pick-up in physical demand.”

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