"Gold and silver weren't allowed to do much on Thursday. Their respective attempts to break through $1,700 and $34 were turned back."

The gold price didn't do much during Far East trading on Monday but began to roll over with a bit more zeal very late in the morning in London and about fifteen minutes before the Comex opened for trading, gold hit its low of the day, before drifting higher.

Gold traded in a ten dollar price range through all of Far East and the first half of the London trading day on Thursday. The absolute low price came at the London silver fix at 12:00 noon local time which is 7:00 a.m. in New York. After that, it was up, up and away for the rest of the trading day.

Gold didn't have a very exciting day yesterday...but it did manage to close on the positive side of the ledger, so I guess we should be thankful to JPMorgan et al for these small mercies.

The real fireworks were in the silver price...as it was off like the proverbial rocket shortly after trading began in the Far East.

Gold's high price in Far East trading came minutes before 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong time...and from there it was a long, slow decline of about eight bucks...and then it bounced off $1,430 a couple of times.

Monday was a very quiet trading day in the world's gold markets yesterday. It traded ruler flat in the Far East...and only bumped up at the London open...and then climbed to its high of the day [$1,440.00 spot] about ten minutes after Comex trading began. Then a seller showed up and quietly sold gold down to its low of the day [$1,429.60 spot] at 11:45 a.m. Eastern...but once that seller disappeared, gold inched higher...and finished the New York trading day up about five bucks from Friday's close. Volume was very light.

All was quiet in the gold market on Friday until the jobs numbers came out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time yesterday...then gold got hit for over twenty bucks.

Gold's low price on Thursday came early in the trading day in the Far East...and was up about twenty bucks from that low by the time the London p.m. gold fix was in shortly after 10:00 a.m. in New York. That $1,440.80 spot price at the fix proved to be the high tick of the day...and gold got sold off a bit going into the close of electronic trading at 5:15 p.m. Eastern...but was still up seven bucks on the day.

After spending most of Far East and early London trading within a five dollar price range on Wednesday, the gold price finally caught a bid at 11:00 a.m. in London that lasted until about ten minutes after the Comex open in New York.

After Thursday's late afternoon price adjustment by one of the usual not-for-profit sellers, the gold price remained in a quiet and very tight trading range up until 12:15 p.m. in New York. Then out of the blue...and for no reason I could see...someone decided to pull their bids and mark gold down about $13 in the space of half an hour.

It was no surprise to me to see gold blast off once trading began in the Far East on Monday morning.