Gold held in positive territory until the first hour of New York trading on Tuesday, then really hit the skids, plummeting nearly $20 by late morning before inching forward through the rest of the day, finally finishing at $926.60/oz., down $10.70. Overnight, gold has been trending higher.
Platinum had a nice peak just after New York opened, almost making it back past $1200, but its fall was even more precipitous, a nearly $35 plunge that took it all the way back to $1165 before a little later-day buying returned it to $1175/oz., down $8. Overnight, platinum has edged higher.

Silver pushed past $14.10 at the London open, but that was all she wrote, as it dropped slowly to mid-morning in New York, then crashed for fair, losing 50 cents in an hour’s time, before edging just a tad higher through the rest of the day and closing at $13.55/oz., down 29 cents. Overnight, silver has moved higher. (Click here for charts)

After several listless days in a row, the precious metals took a blow right to the chin yesterday. True, the usual suspects lined up against them, with the dollar strengthening a bit and crude dropping, but the magnitude of the selloff was out of proportion to the movement in those markets.

It’s likely that end of month and end of quarter fund re-balancing played a major role in the market action.

In addition, “Over the last month gold has suffered from a renewed appetite for risk,” said Brian Kelly, chief executive of Kanundrum Research. “The market is also adjusting to new inflationary expectations.”

And Dan Norcini, writing on jsmineset.com, found the whole day perplexing, writing that, “Last evening crude oil put on some sort of inexplicable price movement driving all the way to $73.38 in Asian trading on EXTREMELY HEAVY volume. Traders all across the globe were at a complete loss trying to figure out what was going on. Then as trading moved into the West, price began to retreat until it hit New York where it promptly collapsed over $2.00 a barrel all the way back down to $69.00.”

Norcini added that, “It did not help gold any today also for the grain market to get a very surprising bearish acreage report for corn. That took it limit down and pulled down wheat and even the beans along with it. With the grains moving sharply lower and the energy sector getting pulverized, gold had little chance of moving higher especially with the dollar once again miraculously managing to move higher (must be that cap and trade bill which will be so helpful to the average American consumer).”

Source: Precious Metals Battered