Daily Market Report 01/06/12

GOLD

It appears that gold has established a solid trading range in the $1,605 to $1,635 area.  This is an important, and very bullish base building period, which will allow the market to continue its 11 year record of setting new all-time highs every year. At 11am PDT, gold is trading at $1,617.80 per ounce, down $3.60 for the day with excellent volume. 

The value of the U.S. Dollar increased this morning as the U.S. economy added 200,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 8.5%.  The euro was also pressured by the continued downtrend in economic numbers - EU retail sales fell 0.8 percent in November from revised growth of 0.1 percent in the previous month. Meanwhile, the European unemployment rate was in line with forecasts at 10.3 percent.

Also, German factory sales for November also fell more than expected at 4.8 percent against a forecasted 1.6-percent decline.

SILVER

Silver still hasn’t broken through the important $30 per ounce level. The highest price silver reached this year is only $29.70.  At 11am silver is down $0.54 per ounce, trading at $28.83 per ounce on average volume.