Daily Market Update 11/01/11

GOLD

Today was a very pivotal trading day. With very negative manufacturing numbers being reported in China, and renewed concern about the Eurozone debt problems, we saw all the market open lower. The DJIA was down as much as 300 points, the Crude Oil price was down over $2 and all precious metals dropped. The U.S. Dollar initially rallied (versus the Euro) on renewed concerns over the Eurozone debt problems, which caused gold to sell off. Gold, at one point hit $1,680 per ounce before we saw substantial buying. At 11am PDT Gold is trading at $1,716.80, down $9.70 per ounce on very active trading.

SILVER

Silver was as low as $32.00 per ounce earlier this morning before a major rally. Right now at 11am PDT, Silver is trading at $33.28 per ounce, down $1.32 on a high volume of trading.

The trading volume of silver forwards, on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), China’s only exchange for the precious metal, surged 751 percent year-on-year in 2010. Demand continues to grow with the volume in September 2011 being more than six times that of the same period in 2010.

Other Important news that affects precious metal prices:

U.S. construction projects rose 0.2% in September, the Commerce Department reported today. The increase put spending on building at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $787.2 billion. This is below the $799.6 billion level reached in June. The gain in construction spending in September was slightly below analysts’ expectations of a 0.3% gain. Year-over-year, construction spending is down 1.3%.