PRECIOUS METALS RECAP

February Gold closed up 11.1 at 1642.6. This was 11.8 up from the low and 5.4 off the high.
March Silver finished up 0.075 at 29.89, 0.31 off the high and 0.345 up from the low.

The gold trade is at least partially convinced that gold is being pushed up off ongoing physical buying interest and given the action this week it is difficult not to buy into some variation of the bull case. For gold to continue to rise in the face of a rising dollar, sagging equities and residual Euro zone fears suggests to some traders that gold has seen some type of shift in focus over the last two weeks. In addition to talk of improving physical demand, the trade also seems to be embracing the view that a moderate portion of the improved demand seems to be coming from mainland China.

While silver wasn't fully able to trade in lockstep with gold today, the bull camp in silver has to be somewhat impressed that silver was able to overcome some bearish outside market action and in turn spent a lot of the Wednesday US trade in positive ground. In other words, silver was able to get away from classically bearish physical commodity market fundamentals of a soaring dollar and weaker equities and for some that suggests silver is indeed attempting to track some flight to quality issues. However, an inside day in silver probably left some traders bearish toward silver from a technical perspective.