Daily Market Report 01/03/12

GOLD

It’s 2012, and the precious metal professionals, commission houses and floor traders are back and they know a bargain when they see it. Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium are all higher on excellent volume. Gold is up $35.84 per ounce from last Friday, and at 11am PDT, trading at $1,602.34 on heavy volume.

Gold imports to India, the world’s top consumer, plunged 56 per cent to 125 tonnes in the fourth quarter, cutting full-year imports by 8.4 per cent as record high prices (due to weakness in the currency value against the U.S. Dollar)and high interest rates hit demand. India imported 878 tonnes of gold in 2011, down from 958 tonnes in 2010.

A new Japanese bullion law, which came into effect on Jan 1, will require bullion retailers to report gold and Platinum transactions over 2 million Yen (US $25,000) to the tax authorities.

Merrill Lynch analysts said they expected gold prices to average $1,850 an ounce in 2012, representing a 17.6% increase over the 2011 spot price average.

SILVER

Asian buyers love a bargain, and Silver under $30 per ounce looks very attractive. Therefore, demand and trading in Asia this morning was very active. Silver traded as high as $29.86, and right now at 11am PDT Silver is up $1.74per ounce, trading at $29.62 per ounce.

See my 2012 Prediction and year-end report on MintStategold.com, here is the link

http://www.mintstategold.com/investor-education/cat/markets/