Gold was in positive territory through Hong Kong and London on Wednesday and, though it fell off into the second hour of New York trading, bottoming at $907, it spiked sharply higher from there, peaking at $930 at mid-morning, then drifted along little changed for the rest of the day, finishing at $927.10/oz., up $19.20. Overnight, gold is trending lower.

Platinum was in the red until mid-morning, when it suddenly spiked almost $20 in a half-hour, but gave it all back just as quickly, and settled into a flat trading pattern that left it unchanged on the day at $1051/oz. Overnight, platinum has been flat.

Silver followed gold to a T for the third straight day, pushing above $13 and holding there until noon, after which it slipped just a little to close at $12.95/oz., up 18 cents. Overnight, silver is unchanged. (Click here for charts)

Buyers were ready to move in on the precious metals yesterday, and with all the usual suspects—falling dollar, rising oil and equities—lining up in support, they were not about to be denied.

Also chipping in on gold’s behalf was were SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), whose holdings of the metal blasted to another alltime high yesterday. GLD added 9.18 metric tons (295,144 ounces) of gold to its vaults, bringing its total to 1038.17 tons, or 33.38 million ounces.

If GLD, the seventh-largest holder of gold bullion in the world, has one more day like yesterday, it will overtake Switzerland for sixth place.

The Swiss, meanwhile, are probably wishing their currency were still gold-backed. Switzerland’s central bank said it will intervene to bring down the value of Swiss franc, and that’s very gold bullish, especially since if one of the world’s most solid currencies is going to be revalued downward, that could set off a chain reaction in which other countries may follow suit.

All of this had the bulls ready to stampede.

Typical was Zachary Oxman, senior trader at Wisdom Financial, who proclaimed that, “Gold has flushed out some of the weak speculators that needed to be cleaned out … I think we are now due for our next leg up over $1,000.”

Source: Gold, Silver Push Higher