PRECIOUS METALS RECAP

February Gold closed up 10.8 at 1623.5. This was 25.8 up from the low and 3.3 off the high.

March Silver finished up 0.199 at 29.296, 0.129 off the high and 0.611 up from the low.



The gold market waffled around both sides of unchanged today but the market seemed to firm toward the end of the trading session. Clearly fears of Euro inspired slowing were at times offset by ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Traders might have expected gold to have benefited more from favorable US scheduled data but that wasn't the case initially. With the rise today, February gold reached the highest level since December 21st and that would seem to suggest that gold has indeed picked up on a divergent path to the rest of the precious metals complex.

The silver market was unable to rise above the prior session's high but it was able to temporarily forge a fresh new low for the move. Silver seemed to snap around and eventually benefit from the action in gold, but with platinum and copper prices remaining weak, it would seem like silver was in some way attempting to track with gold again. In the near term silver is likely to waffle back and forth between a flight to quality status and being a classic physical commodity.