Gold developed a slight upward trend late in Hong Kong and rode that trend mostly sideways through the end of the day to a marginal gain. The yellow metal closed at $925.30/oz., up $4.50. Overnight, gold is up sharply. 

Platinum’s graph looked quite similar to gold yesterday, as the precious metal developed what looked like the gentlest of trends in the black but managed to tack on quite a bit before all was said and done, ending the day at $1129/oz., up $16. Overnight, platinum is way up.

Silver rounded out what ended up being a solid but uneventful day for the precious metals by showing the same slight trend as gold and platinum, ending at $12.87/oz., up 4 cents. Overnight, silver is trending much higher. (Click here for charts)

Gold had kind of a blah day, but I’m sure investors don’t mind too much since it was still able to post a modest gain despite the third straight day of falling crude prices.

Nevertheless, holdings of GLD, the world’s largest ETF backed by gold bullion, declined by 15.27 metric tons yesterday down to 1,094.54 tons. Since June 15th, holdings have fallen by 37.61 metric tons.

Darren Heathcote, head of trading at Investec Australia, said the dip was a reflection of the weak sentiment in last week’s market when bullion slipped to below $910.

So it was not surprising to see some investor interest being unwound,” he said.

He added, however, that he would not read too much into the decline.

“I wouldn’t consider it a change to the overall picture, the overall trend, which I think is still relatively positive for gold,” Heathcote said.

In company specific news, Silver Wheaton Corp. announced that construction of the first sulphide process line at Goldcorp’s gold-silver-lead-zinc Penasquito mine in Zacatecas, Mexico is now complete and commissioning work is advancing on schedule. Production and shipment of first concentrates are still targeted for the second half of 2009.

After a ramp-up period, Penasquito is forecast to produce an average of about 30 million ounces of silver annually over an initial 22-year mine life, of which Silver Wheaton is to receive 25% or in excess of 7 million ounces of silver per year.

Source: The Daily Resource 7/15/09