Today’s action in the gold pits was as predictable as night following day. There was no major headline or economic data point to react to which meant an opportunity to create more stability after Friday’s substantial move back over $1580 per ounce.  Coming into the European open gold had put on a couple of dollars, trading above $1582 but once Europe opened the selling began and continued right through to noon.  There was some mild short covering below $1570 and the price settled at $1573 for the afternoon.

Silver opened high last night and simply was sold all even and through today but managed to put in a second close in a row above $27 as the commodity markets all stabilized, especially crude oil — both WTI and Brent — and copper.  At this point Silver is trading like an industrial metal and as such needs to be evaluated in those terms.  This represents an opportunity to add to your silver holdings at very low prices but it also carries with it more risk.  At a minimum silver needs to regain $28.50 this week, a tall order, to negate last week’s wash out.  Unless commodity markets begin turning around quickly that doesn’t seem like a high probability event.

The physical market is not pulling either gold or silver up at this point but rather keeping them from falling.    Watch the Euro from here as I expect it to begin moving back towards $1.35 over the next 4-6 weeks.  This will be supportive of higher gold prices.