Gold Seeker Weekly Wrap-Up: Gold and Silver Gain Over 3% on the Week

Please Note: US markets are closed on Monday for President’s Day. Canadian markets are also closed for Family Day. The Gold Seeker Report will return on Tuesday.

	Close	Gain/Loss	On Week
Gold	$1088.20	-$5.70	+3.41%
Silver	$15.41	-$0.18	+3.98%
XAU	159.60	-0.69%	+3.47%
HUI	401.71	-0.89%	+3.15%
GDM	1206.83	-0.87%	+3.32%
JSE Gold	2253.63	+27.78	+4.41%
USD	80.31	+0.30	-0.16%
Euro	136.20	-0.66	-0.29%
Yen	111.12	-0.36	-0.65%
Oil	$74.13	-$1.15	+4.13%
10-Year	3.693%	-0.040	+4.15%
Bond	117.5625	+0.3125	-1.62%
Dow	10099.14	-0.44%	+0.87%
Nasdaq	2183.53	+0.28%	+1.98%
S&P	1075.51	-0.27%	+0.87%

Gold saw slight losses in Asia and fell almost 1.5% in London to as low as $1077.65 by a little after 9:30AM EST, but it then rallied back higher in late morning New York trade and ended near its noontime high of $1092.40 with a loss of just 0.52%. Silver fell over 2.5% to as low as $15.191 before it also climbed back higher for most of the rest of the day and ended with a loss of just 1.15%.

Euro gold remained about €800, platinum lost $11 to $1503, and copper fell 5 cents to about $3.08.

Gold and silver equities fell over 3% at the open before they rallied back near unchanged midday and then fell back off a bit in early afternoon trade, but they still ended with less than 1% losses.

Report	For	Reading	Expected	Previous
Retail Sales	Jan	0.5%	0.3%	-0.1%
Retail Sales ex-auto	Jan	0.6%	0.5%	-0.2%
Michigan Sentiment	Feb	73.7	75.0	74.4
Business Inventories	Dec	-0.2%	0.2%	0.5%

Next week’s economic highlights include the Treasury Budget on Tuesday, Export and Import Prices, Building Permits, Housing Starts, Capacity Utilization, and Industrial Production on Wednesday, PPI, Initial Jobless Claims, Leading Economic Indicators, and the Philadelphia Fed on Thursday, and CPI on Friday.

Oil fell on worries over weakening demand after it was announced that China raised their reserve requirements and that crude inventories built 2.4 million barrels.

The U.S. dollar index and treasuries rose while the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P fell on

China

’s surprise move to once again raise the level of reserves its banks must hold.

Yahoo/AP - “Chinese regulators are trying to contain rapid economic growth there to prevent speculative investment bubbles. Investors worry that a slowdown in China could disrupt a

U.S.

recovery by hurting exports and profits of companies that do business there.”

Bloomberg - “The reserve requirement will rise 50 basis points, or 0.5 percentage point, effective Feb. 25, the People’s Bank of China said on its Web site yesterday. The existing level is 16 percent for the biggest banks and 14 percent for smaller ones.

Policy makers are reining in credit growth after banks extended 19 percent of this year’s 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) lending target in January and property prices climbed the most in 21 months. Oil, copper and European stocks fell after the announcement on concern that tighter lending in China will damp the global recovery.”

Among the big names making news in the market Friday were Ingersoll-Rand and Motorola.

Will the Euro be the vehicle to increase the floating exchange rate system or the vehicle for the next step in the devolution of paper money?

What you are presently witnessing is the unwind of sovereign entities as a product of their adventures into OTC derivatives and disregard for economic law.

Greece

is the Lehman Brothers of the euro, making it harder to accept Soc Gen's position today that the euro is about to break up.

I see this as a crisis situation by design for the establishment, in time, of a single Western currency and a single Western central bank of central banks. Gold will then be attached at the hip in the inverse to this single Western world currency with the single western currency trading lower against Asian currencies or a single Asian currency.

My feeling is that this well publicized event today of sundering confidence in the euro will simply accelerate the devolution of paper money as any storehouse of value, upgrading gold in the final analysis as the most trustworthy currency form.

It is unlikely that central bankers would want to have history record them as the caretaker when a system dissolved. They would much more likely prefer to be known as the architect of something new.

Trichet certainly wishes he kept his mouth shut when the euro was at $1.52 as the decline thereafter to his verbal intervention set the stage for the attack that followed.

Think about this for a moment. A collapse of the euro would retrogress to the dollar trading against a host of currencies, opening up each currency to a successful attack on whatever was deemed to be the weakness, picking off each country's debt one at a time. The dollar will be in more, not less, danger when it is valued second to second, not against the simple euro, but rather a host of other Western currency units. It would set the stage for a Western world collapse of confidence in money as a storehouse of value.

Consider the implications if the Korean press is right about a common Asian currency amongst the strongest Asian nations.

We have created so much paper in the world that it is now considered kindergarten to attack individual stocks when you can bankrupt countries.

To assume the dollar is insulated against this "Art of War" approach to planetary destruction is silly. That would mean you accept the December hog wash of a sustainable US recovery.

The US is headed towards the same economic conditions of the second leg of the Great Depression. A 1933-1934 type unwind is coming. The only argument for a sustainable equity market in the Western World is the Weimar case.

All currencies are headed in one direction: down in storehouse of value character.

Gold is the only storehouse of value. Gold has demonstrated that clearly even in the face of the Crimex and the gold banks fighting it.

“There's not much to add to what I've been saying all week. The European Union is like a deer caught in the headlights at the moment. They know exactly what we know, the moment they attempt to bail out Greece, the alarm bells for the Euro will go off... so right now they're just talking a lot... and hoping the Greek government will get the message and do the right thing. But there's already demonstrations in the streets of Athens... so this situation is not going to go away anytime soon. The crux of the matter is that it's a 'lose-lose' situation no matter what happens. Sooner or later, all of Europe is going to go down the financial, economic and monetary drain... with the rest of the Western world not far behind.”– From Ed Steer’s Gold & Silver Daily, read the full report here.

Note: Change in Total Tonnes from yesterday’s data: The LSE subtracted 0.35 tonnes.

COMEX Gold Trust (IAU) Total Tonnes in Trust: 77.44 - No change from yesterday’s data.

Silver Trust (SLV) Total Tonnes in Trust: 9,397.56 - No change from yesterday’s data.

Timberline’s (TLR) first quarter financial results and Silver Standard’s (SSRI) priced public offering were among the big stories in the gold and silver mining industry making headlines Friday.

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

Solid closes private placement - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Midlands Brings in $8.2 Million in Two Tranches - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Lake Shore Gold Commences Drill Program on Gold River Trend, the Company's Third Major Timmins West Target - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Brionor Closes $600,000 Non-Brokered Private Placement - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Afri-Can Reports on Start of Diamond Sampling Program on Block J in Namibia - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Mega Uranium Ltd. Releases Unaudited Results for the Three Months Ended December 31, 2009 - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Centamin Egypt Reports on Activities in the Quarter Ended December 31, 2009 - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Government of Zimbabwe Sets Out Regulations for Indigenisation - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

FACTBOX-The vital statistics of molybdenum - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Richmond Minerals Inc. - Earn-in confirmation on option agreement with Fort Chimo Minerals Inc. - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

First Quantum Minerals Ltd. Announces Exercise of Options for Shares in Kalumbila Minerals Limited - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Bravada 'Spin-out' Approved by Bravo's Shareholders - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Prominex Resource Corp.: Corporate Update - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Lions Gate Metals Inc.: Encouraging Geophysical Results on Poplar-Multiple Targets Defined - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Eagle Plains/Touchdown Capital Release Analytical Results from Drill Program at Sphinx Molybdenum Project, Southeastern BC - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Mountain Lake Appoints Robert Harris to the Board - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Talon Metals options Juruena Gold Project in Brazil - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Trelawney Purchases Mine Infrastructure and Assets From First Metals Inc. - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Option Signed on the Lara and Tingo Este Copper Projects With Redzone Resources - More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Silver Standard Announces Pricing of Public Offering of Common Shares - "Silver Standard Resources Inc. (TSX:SSO - News)(NASDAQ:SSRI - News) has priced its previously announced public offering of common shares (the "Offering"). Pursuant to the Offering, the company will issue 5,882,353 common shares at a price of US$17.00, for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately US$100 million. The company will file a final prospectus supplement to its existing amended and restated short form base shelf prospectus with the securities commissions in each of the provinces of Canada, other than Quebec, and will make a similar filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about February 18, 2010." More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

Timberline Announces First Quarter 2010 Financial Results - "For the first fiscal quarter, Timberline reported total consolidated revenues of $3.96 million and a consolidated after-tax net loss of $0.93 million.Â Timberline's contract drilling subsidiaries, Timberline Drilling Incorporated ("Timberline Drilling") and World Wide Exploration, S.A. de C.V. ("World Wide") reported combined revenues of $3.96 million and a combined after-tax net income of $0.15 million for the first quarter. This marks the third consecutive quarter of positive combined net income for Timberline's contract drilling subsidiaries." More
- February 12, 2010 | Item | ShareThis

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