OK, found these.
Tuesday September 18, 11:21 am Eastern Time
Gold holds station at highs, awaits developments
LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Gold edged up towards the day's highs during Tuesday afternoon trading in Europe, but moves were was less volatile than in recent sessions as the market ponders what may follow last week's attacks in the United States.
``Not a lot has really happened today in bullion -- it has not been that dramatic,'' one trader said.
Traders said there was a perception that U.S. retaliation for attacks last week in New York and Washington was fairly imminent. So the next price move should be upwards, as investors again flock to the safe-haven metal.
``There is an impasse in the market at the moment as to what is going to happen next. Everyone is just waiting for the next stage,'' another trader said.
Analysts said that the immediate knee-jerk reaction to last week's attacks now appears to have run its course, with the New York market having re-opened for business on Monday and re-adjusted prices.
``From the current perspective, however, our analysis of the situation suggests the consequence of these events will be higher gold prices in the short term, with $300.00/ounce acting as the main focus, followed by a steady return to the established $260.00/280.00 range,'' Barclays Capital said in a special report.
Currently, the uncertainties outweigh the certainties regarding the political and economic consequences of the attacks.
``We can only be certain of two things. Firstly, the attacks will have a negative economic impact on an economy which was struggling to maintain consumer confidence and avoid recession, and secondly the U.S. and its allies will retaliate,'' Barclays said.
Earlier, contradicting reports about a declaration of war against the United States by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and news that Taliban rulers had set conditions for the extradition of Osama bin Laden, identified by Washington as a prime suspect in the attacks, failed to move the market.
Eventually, it was announced that Afghanistan's highest-ranking Islamic clerics postponed for at least one day a planned grand council meeting called to discuss what to do with bin Laden.
Technical analysts said gold's trend remained constructive in the short term, with the metal attempting to test $300 soon. Support at $284.00 and then $276.00 is expected to hold.
Gold was fixed at $289.40 an ounce this afternoon, up from the morning setting of $288.65, but below Monday afternoon's 18-1/2 month high of $293.25.
At 1510 GMT spot gold was at $288.50/290.00, against Monday's New York close at $289.20/290.70.
SILVER FIRMER, AT HIGHEST SINCE JUNE Silver, although quiet, moved up to around $4.40 at one stage, the highest since late June, on short-covering against some short-term supply worries.
Some traders said prices had been pushed higher by the implications of some 30 million ounces of COMEX-registered silver buried under the World Trade Center (WTC) ruins, but others said the major influence on silver was the gold market.
Latest data issued by COMEX showed that 29,942,619 ounces were stored in the vaults of the depository buried under the WTC -- valued at around $123 million at current prices. This represents some 30 percent of COMEX's total stockpile.
However, analysts said they saw little long-term impact on prices due to the silver's unavailability, as metal could be delivered from other locations against COMEX contracts.
Silver was indicated at $4.37/4.40, well up from Monday's London close at $4.28/4.30. In the platinum group metals (PGMs) spot platinum was indicated at $482.00/490.00, up on Monday's London close at $471.00/481.00, while palladium was at $460.00/470.00, against the last close at $458.00/473.00.
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Thursday September 13, 2:19 pm Eastern Time
WTC wreckage guards buried treasure of COMEX gold
By Alden Bentley
NEW YORK, Sept 13 (Reuters) - Nearly 12 tonnes of gold appears to be buried under mountains of debris from New York City's destroyed twin towers, where experts said it was securely out of reach of treasure hunters, looters and, for now, even the bullion trading community.
The bars, worth about $106 million, were stored in an underground warehouse near the World Trade Center and held on behalf of the COMEX metals trading division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
``It's probably safer than it's ever been. It's probably buried under 107 stories of rubble,'' said Jonathan Potts, president at FideliTrade Inc, the Wilmington Del.-based parent of the Delaware Depository Service Co., an official COMEX warehouse for silver.
The gold is held in the vaults of ScotiaMocatta, the metals and bullion trading division of Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia (Toronto:BNS.TO - news) and one of the two official depositories that hold gold for delivery against futures contracts traded at the
Comex.
A spokeswoman for NYMEX, which is still shuttered, had no comment on COMEX's warehoused gold.
According to COMEX data published by Reuters Monday night, before two hijacked aircraft demolished the Manhattan landmarks and symbols of New York's financial might, there were 379,036 Troy ounces or about 3,800 bars of 100 ounces each held in safe-keeping for the exchange by ScotiaMocatta.
``The bars are still there. Obviously, they are going to be able to dig them out -- unless they melted and disappeared,'' speculated one dealer at a precious metals trading firm in New York.
Larry Scott, global head of ScotiaMocatta in Toronto, told Reuters by telephone that for security reasons he could not discuss the location of precious metals on deposit with the firm.
``All our staff that work in the depository are safe and well,'' said Scott, "Operations are obviously not normal, but we have no concerns at this time, either security or financial.
``Everything is not normal, but everything's OK,'' he said.
Another 413,134 ounces of COMEX gold is in the storage facility of HSBC Bank USA, located far from the carnage.
HSBC would not comment on its storage facility.
Experts said the quantity buried downtown amounts to about 2 percent of the 600-tonne-a-day global bullion market. There would probably be little long-term disruption in physical trade if it remained temporarily unavailable for shipment, they said, even if the week's turmoil causes more safe-haven buying of gold.
``This is a futures market,'' Scott said. ``The big movements of physical metal take place at the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. It's trivial next to the rest of the market.''
In London bullion trade Thursday, spot gold ended at $280.00/$282.00 an ounce, up from London's close Wednesday at $279.00/$281.00. Volumes remained thin as dealers stayed on the sidelines, after pushing bullion sharply higher Tuesday in a spasm of flight-to-quality buying.
The COMEX, which also trades futures and options in silver, copper and aluminum, has been closed since Tuesday but NYMEX is working on getting its off-hours ACCESS trading system running on the Internet by later Thursday.
Potts said that metal could be delivered from alternative facilities at refiners elsewhere in the United States. Any remelting into the 100-ounce bars of 99.5 percent pure gold acceptable for COMEX delivery specifications would take a bit of time.
``There could be some potential squeeze on some physical products,'' Potts said. ``I don't believe it's going to be necessarily dramatic.''
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``If there are settlements that are getting delayed because that metal was destined to come out of that facility, I'm sure they are coming out of alternative facilities.''
The COMEX trading floor, located at One North End Avenue is in lower Manhattan. The NYMEX has said its facilities were largely undamaged by the collapse of the nearby towers.
biz.yahoo.com
Should it be noted this comes to $107722031.2 which is a damn sight short of the $650M so often claimed before!!!!! Just where the Hell did that $443M of precious metals go? Did someone become afraid to report the $650M number for insurance losses? |
