Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver Fall About 3% and 5% before Fed, Soar Over 6% Higher After

	Close	Gain/Loss
Gold	$889.45	-$26.55
Silver	$12.035	-$0.635
XAU	129.54	+8.75%
HUI	304.23	+9.16%
GDM	966.29	+9.64%
JSE Gold	2792.57	-59.37
USD	84.35	-2.55
Euro	134.95	+4.83
Yen	103.99	+2.62
Oil	$48.14	-$1.02
10-Year	2.533%	-0.470
T-Bond	130.640625	+5.09375
Dow	7486.58	+1.23%
Nasdaq	1491.22	+1.99%
S&P	794.35	+2.09%

The FOMC kept the fed funds rate unchanged as expected in its target range of 0% to 0.25%. The fed also announced they are expanding the TALF, buying up to $750 billion more in agency mortgage-backed securities, and buying up to $300 billion in long term treasury securities over the next 6 months. The fed’s direct buying of treasuries is a new program that was rumored recently, but few expected the fed to actually take such a dramatic step and it caught much of the market by surprise. These new programs bring the fed’s total purchases of securities to $1.25 trillion this year.

Gold and silver traded just slightly lower in Asia and London, but they then fell throughout most of trade in New York and ended near their lows of $883.50 and $11.90 with losses of 2.98% and 5.01%. Following the fed’s announcement however, both metals instantly shot higher and at the time of writing they are seeing gains of over 6% in after hours access trade.

Euro gold fell to about €678, platinum lost $14 to $1029.5, and copper lost a penny to about $1.71.

Gold and silver equities fell roughly 5% by early afternoon, but they then soared higher following the fed’s announcement and the miners with about 9% gains on the day.

Report	For	Reading	Expected	Previous
CPI	Feb	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%
Core CPI	Feb	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
Current Account Balance	Q4	-$132.8B	-$137.1B	-$181.3B

Tomorrow at 8:30AM EST brings Initial Jobless Claims for 3/14 and at 10AM is the Leading Economic Indicators report for February expected at -0.6% and the Philadelphia Fed survey for March expected at -40.0.

Oil fell in normal trade as inventories grew more than expected, but it has more than erased those losses in electronic trade after the fed’s announcement.

The U.S. dollar index plummeted while treasuries soared higher in reaction to the fed’s announcement to monetize debt.

The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P erased their early losses and climbed to see substantial gains initially after the fed’s announcement, but all three indices pared their gains heading into close and ended well off their highs as traders digested all of the implications of the fed’s actions.

Among the big names making news in the market today were AIG, IBM, Coca-Cola, and General Mills.

Now you know how truly horrible the OTC derivative meltdown is. What a mess the main manufacturer and distributor of this toxic paper, the USA, is in

There is no practical solution to this problem so ignore the ignoramuses on the Comex. Use the Comex to buy every time the ignoramuses raid and sell the short squeeze if you must trade.”- Jim Sinclair, JSMineset.com

It looks to me like gold’s inability to climb back over $1,000, or at the very least get back over $960 to resume an uptrending move, in the face of such an horrific financial meltdown, brought about a wholesale liquidation of stale longs who have bailed out in both disappointment and disgust. I will continue to maintain that only the Almighty knows how much of our own TARP money was used by the bullion dealers at the Comex to overwhelm the bids that came into that paper market. As I have said before, throw a few $billion here and a few $billion there in my direction and I could have all kinds of fun with a few commodity markets. Since all of the idiots who voted in favor of this execrable bailout haven’t the faintest clue as to where the money is going or for that matter, what it is being used for, is it that far-fetched to think that a portion of it is being used by these paragons of virtue, the bullion banks, to destroy the only thing honest that is left in the financial world, namely the yellow metal? These are some of the same people who would package their grandmothers together and sell them off to a hedge fund if they thought they could make a quick buck off of it.

No matter – technically gold is looking heavy and will need to hold above today’s session low to prevent a potentially bearish head and shoulders pattern from forming on the daily price chart. Rest assured if I can see it, those same folks mentioned above can see it also. If the chart painters can prevail and force that pattern to form, we are probably going to have to sit through another one of those frequent technical washouts that have marked this bull market in gold for many years. A case could be made from the charts that a move down to near the $800 level is not out of the question although we should see quality buying enter at the 50% retracement level near $853 on down to the 100 day moving average around the $847 level. Gold needs to hold here and hold now!

I want to mention that I am seeing a great deal of red in just about all of the various commodity markets this morning with the energies getting hit particularly hard and the grains also swooning. That indicates index fund selling which is one of the reasons gold also dropped so severely. They bail out or move into most commodity markets in sync as their nature requires them to buy or sell a broad basket of commodities when filling orders for clients. Not to mention the fact that these bear raids on gold almost always coincide with either option expiration or rollover periods, the latter which we are now seeing as the twits that run the funds must roll from April to June gold or else take delivery, something which they are apparently allergic to but which would put an end to this endless charade at the Comex. Open interest indicates that the rollover has begun.”- Dan Norcini, More at JSMineset.com

“April Gold closed down 27.7 at 889.1. This was 4.1 up from the low and 16.9 off the high.

May Silver finished down 0.735 at 11.935, 0.455 off the high and 0.015 up from the low.

Trading in gold turned extremely volatile on Wednesday with the market initially being pushed sharply lower on what the press called rising investor risk tolerance and that in turn seemingly prompted long liquidation and some chart based selling. Recent economic reports including today's CPI and yesterday's housing data also seemed to be fomenting some economic optimism that in turn diminished gold's safe haven appeal. In fact, reports of rising scrap gold supplies and slack jewelry demand in India may have added to the early selling bias. However, the gold market was obviously inspired by the aggressive action from the FOMC meeting, which in turn seemed to shift the gold market from a flight to quality focused market to an inflation focused market. While the inflation angle might not stick a sharp slide in the Dollar in the wake of the FOMC meeting could have been a totally fresh bullish force for the gold trade on Wednesday afternoon.

Like the gold market, the silver market started out weak in the face of what appeared to be more long liquidation by the flight to quality crowd. However, before the end of the day the market seemingly saw a major reversal of sentiment to the FOMC moves which drove down long term US interest rates and lifted equity prices sharply. Silver and a host of physical commodity market clearly saw some lift from the US efforts but silver might also have been lifted because of a sharp and somewhat significant slide in the US Dollar. While it might take more than one session to shift from flight to quality expectations to inflationary expectations, the trade on Wednesday clearly saw the actions by the US Fed as something significant.”- The Hightower Report, Futures Analysis and Forecasting

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: The LSE added 0.41 tonnes.

US Gold’s (UXG) drill results, Allied Nevada’s (ANV) financial results, Kirkland’s (KGI.TO) drill results, ECU’s (ECU.TO) shareholder update, and Coeur’s (CDE) director appointment were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines today.

Winners & Losers tracks NYSE and AMEX listed gold and silver mining stocks that trade over $1.

Volta undertakes extensive auger drilling program to test potential between the Dienemera and Gongondy deposits at the Gaoua project - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Asian Mineral Resources: Appoints New CEO - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

StrataGold and Victoria extend the Definitive Agreement deadline - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Verena Initiates Scoping Study at Volta Grande - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Radius Acquires Option on Peruvian Gold Project and Signs Agreement with Focus Ventures - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Focus Options the Nueva California Gold Property, Peru - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Mediterranean announces major shareholder - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

ECU Silver Provides Shareholder Update - "The past few months have continued to be challenging for the junior mining industry as the world economy continues to deteriorate. With this backdrop, the management team at ECU have taken steps to ensure that we protect shareholder value as we venture into these turbulent times. Consequently, our recent purchase of a gold and silver recovery oxide plant is designed to generate cash flows to support our ongoing funding and exploration needs." More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Rocmec Attains Optimal Daily Production From its Underground Treatment Plant - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

TVI Pacific Inc. - Correction From Source - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Northrock Summer Drilling Program Results in Multiple Gold Intersections on Trade Winds' Turner Lake Option, Nunavut - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Lydian Reports Its First Million Ounce Resource at the Amulsar Gold Discovery in Armenia - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

International Finance Corporation to Further Invest in Lydian - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Mega Uranium Acquires Securities of Titan Uranium Inc. - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Cardero Grants Nanjinzhao Extension to Pampa de Pongo Purchase Agreement - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Garibaldi Deals Grizzly Claims to Equinox and Adds New Director - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Forsys Further Update on Plan of Arrangement - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Midlands Minerals Confirms South Extentions of Open Pit Mines on Sian/Praso-Ghana - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Southwestern Announces Antay and Alpacocha Drilling Results - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Skygold Reports a 47% Increase in Estimated Gold Resource for Spanish Mountain - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Houston Lake Mining Extends Gold Mineralization To Depth At The Dogpaw No. 2 Vein - More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

US Gold Corporation: El Gallo Returns Deepest High-Grade Intercept 20.8 opt Silver Over 14.3 ft - "US GOLD CORPORATION (Toronto:UXG.TO - News)(AMEX:UXG - News)(Frankfurt:US8.F - News) is pleased to announce that core drilling at the El Gallo project in Sinaloa State, Mexico, has returned the deepest high-grade silver intersection to date. Testing below the previous limits of the mineralization returned: 20.8 ounces of silver per ton (opt) (713.1 grams per tonne (gpt)) over 14.3 feet (ft) (4.4 meters (m))." More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Coeur d'Alene Mines Announces Appointment of New Director L. Michael Bogert, and Promotion of Kelli C. Kast to Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Off. - "Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation is pleased to announce the appointment of L. Michael Bogert to the Company’s Board of Directors and the promotion of Kelli C. Kast as Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Coeur. The Company also announced the filing of its preliminary proxy statement for its Annual Meeting of Shareholders to be held on May 12, 2009." More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Allied Nevada Reports 2008 Financial Results and 2009 Outlook - "Allied Nevada had a consolidated net loss in 2008 of $79.6 million compared to a consolidated net loss of $11.3 million in 2007. The increase in the consolidated net loss of $68.4 million is largely due to $39.0 million in mineral property impairments, $12.0 million of mine start up costs, an increase of $10.4 million in exploration, property evaluation and holding costs, and an increase of $4.7 million in corporate general and administrative costs." More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

Kirkland Lake Gold Inc.: Drilling Continues to Intersect High Grade Mineralization on South Claims JV - "Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. ("KL Gold") (TSX:KGI - News; AIM:KGI) and Queenston Mining Inc. ("Queenston") (TSX:QMI - News; FRANKFURT:QMI - News; STUTTGART:QMI - News) are pleased to announce recently completed drilling on jointly held (50%-50%) South Claims Joint Venture property within the South Mine Complex ("SMC") located south of KL Gold's Macassa Mine in Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Intersections include 1.81 ounces of gold per ton ("opt") over a core length of 16.4 feet (12.9 feet true width), 2.63 opt uncut (1.63 opt cut) over a core length of 13.5 feet (7.9 feet true width) and 1.05 opt over 11.3 feet (7.6 feet true width)." More
- March 18, 2009 | Item | E-mail

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