Gold pushed higher through the first hour of the New York session yesterday, peaking at $981, but then ran into some determined selling that sent it spiraling downward into the Globex, where it flatlined to finish at $959.30/oz., down $17.90. Overnight, gold has fallen further.

Platinum’s long slide was prolonged for another day, as the metal skidded from the last hour of NYMEX trading through the Globex to end at $1900/oz., down $60. Overnight, platinum has been flat.

Silver remained above $19 through the mid-morning hours, but faded from there, closing at $18.76/oz., down 13 cents. Overnight, silver is little changed.
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The precious metals took a trip south, as would have been expected as the usual suspects lined up uniformly…

Can you talk a currency into gaining value? It seems Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and European Central (ECB) President Trichet think so. They’ve been telling anyone who will listen how serious they are about fighting the inflation monster that would cheapen their currencies.

We aren’t scared of the peaks – what we are nervous about are the valleys…all the Fed’s hard work can be undone by a single day of trading… The global oil crunch…consumer confidence is out of gas as well – thank goodness for those rebate checks… The anniversary of the “Esperanto Money”…in central banking, the consequence of inertia and inactivity is almost always salutary…and more!

Are you getting dizzy yet trying to keep track of all the takeover activity in the Aussie market? From the big fish to the little fish, all of fishes in Australia’s resource ocean are on the Chinese menu.