woody

I missed the question but CNBC had his post-answer comments in full. 'It is the unwinding of a 35 year bubble in the dollar', 'Prices haven't gone up in terms of gold, just the fiat currencies' etc. etc.. No comment from Binky.

I've had this before with IG. They claim the silver and gold prices quoted are not the market spot but those of a feed. They don't say what feed and I've seen it deviate from the spot on many occasions usually just enough to whip me out of a guaranteed stop.

Yeah, looking good now. Stocks easing and oil rallying which is a big positive. My short worked well (out at $920) but that choppiness after was a bit painful! Thankfully it has calmed down a bit now and looking good for a positive run.

Getting very difficult to call now. Maybe time to switch the screen off for today :-)

Looks like the bulls are back in charge. Real sharp uptick that!

Right now you could flip yesterday's chart on its head which means there's a big downer coming very shortly...

$925-odd is presenting a lot of resistance and we've only got 20 mins or so until the pre-market action starts. I've taken a tentative short at $925 (short-term - still long on core holdings) although I might rapidly change my mind in a bit :-) I agree, it looks like being violent one way or another.

Interesting... they're wheeling out the technical analyists now talking about the S&P, FTSE-100 both being at or around trend and risking critical support. All good for gold although I haven't seen that chart pulled up yet!

I've made a bit on the short side in G&S as the moves so far are incredibly smooth. $910 now providing a bit of support so another run to $912 is on the cards.

CNBS is like a comedy today. The shock and horror at all this unjustified weakness in stocks. And quote of the day which says it all (re Golden Sacks downgraded GM & Citi): "And they did it just 3 days before the end of the quarter"

$910 gone

Mervyn King: Expect a one year pause in living standards Interesting. Right timing to be the catalyst for this move.

$910 is important resistance. But its trying...

Blimey! That is the kind of open I like.

Nice :-) Looks strong this morning. It got a little bit scary in the period between the inventory and Fed announcements and I nearly got stopped out several times. Thankfully, I hung in and am back in profit on the short-term positions. With hindsight I could have trade it down then for the bounce although I've been whipped a couple of times this week so am trying to trade a bit less with wider stops to avoid being stopped out. I think we're in for a run today especially with oil bouncing too.

It is clearly being taken as an opportunity to take profits or short oil and ramp stocks. I think the move in gold/silver is somewhat secondary and they seems to be bouncing around a lot. As oil is down $4 now, I'm interested in the $130 level as for the last few weeks that has been the bottom of the trading range.

Your sale looks good Marceu. Inventories up, oil off $3. There was some major volatility in the silver price in the hour before the announcement. It seems to be clinging to the $16.60 level though.

... and feeling increasingly contrarian after listening to the naked short podcast posted above. Potent stuff.

I'm still long in core positions but also have a short term CFD position from the drop earlier in the week. I got stopped out in the mid-day (US) move yesterday and re-opened this morning . I'm half-expecting a move lower but no lower than $16.60 and very short-lived (i.e. I don't mind riding it out), but don't want to miss a possible leap. Fingers crossed

I'm inclined to agree - no action but a lot of rhetoric. I'm actually more interested in the oil inventories figures and think that'll lead to a move in a strong move in crude one way or another, hopefully upwards. I'm undecided how that'll affect gold although, like you, expect bullish fundamentals to lead to negative action! On another note, I'm disappointed with silver's lack of a recovery this week. In the event of a bullish move in gold, it has a lot of catching up to do.

It does pose the scenario where physical could move well away from paper given the paper isn't necessarily geographically constrained, i.e. a London traded ETF may hold gold in Switzerland. It does tempt me to look at my physical weightings.

I'm long both currently and suspect there's a bit to run yet but I'm inclined to agree on a couple of month view. Taking the scenario that the investment banks are ramping oil and suppressing gold, both of which make sense and I've read in a number of places, it makes sense that at some point they will switch. They'll cease being long or more than likely short oil to fund closing shorts and going long in gold (and silver). Joe Public who has followed them in (read/heard lots of talk about 'hedging your fuel bills by buying ETFs') will be left holding the baby, they replenish their coffers with profits from Fed capital and move on to the next victim. They have too much capital to fight but by second-guessing, or at least trading with the trend, we can do ok. All of that said, I do still fundamentally believe in higher oil due to the supply/demand equation and a belief that Saudi's capacity to pump more indefinitely is not nearly what it has suggested and doubt we'll return anywhere near previous lows.

This is curious given yesterday's moves: SPDR Gold Trust gold holdings rise 2 pct on Jun 23 24 Jun 2008 - 09:31 LONDON, June 24 (Reuters) - The volume of gold held in the world's largest gold-backed exchange traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust, rose by 2 percent on June 23, the fund said on Tuesday. The fund, formerly known as StreetTRACKS Gold Trust, added an extra 12.26 tonnes of gold bullion on Monday to bring its total holding to 628.21 tonnes, its highest level since April 21.

Looking into this a bit more, the suggestion seems to be that it was a forced sale to cover a margin call on oil. That makes sense if you think of what went on at the weekend and the (daft in my opinion) expectation that Saudi would pull a rabbit out the hat and oil would fall today. That backfired and any short would have been squeezed. Dumping gold (and silver) at the open could have provided the funding but, like you say, it would have needed to be a big position. The only thing that doesn't fit with that is that immediately gold traded off, oil dropped a couple of dollars for no more than a few minutes before rebounding. Can we put that down to a sympathy move? I've also seen talk that it was general selling to unwind a hedge against the falling dollar but that sounds like wishful thinking to me and the speed of the move doesn't fit. The behaviour since the move has been pretty positive. After the move down in a single move, both gold and silver have been generally gaining ground. Silver has been stronger but then it fell 5% vs gold's 2%. Hopefully that'll continue although gold is not keen to trade above $885. I'm fully long, weighted mostly to silver, and have taken a small speculative position in silver to try and benefit from the bounce which I hope will come over the next few days.

We punched down through support at $885 but bounced off the up-trend we set quite recently. That is healthy but the rest of the day is key. I'd be far happier if we closed above $890. The concern right now is that whilst we bounced, it does look to be rolling over. If we dip back below $875 I'll worry. Nevertheless, I bought some silver CFDs (at $16.70) for the bounce as I feel the downside is limited from here and all the fundamentals point the other way to this move.