Precious metals in steep decline in New York

New York (Platts)--18Jan2006

The entire precious metals complex is in decline on the futures exchanges
Wednesday morning, as profit taking in Asia spilled over into Europe and the
ripple effects are being felt in New York. Gold is beating a hasty retreat
from its 25-year high and platinum has plummeted after testing its all-time
high in Asia.

     On the COMEX, the nearby February gold futures contract fell $8.10 to
$546.20/oz at 10:05am EST; March silver plunged 17.3cts to $8.90/oz; on the
NYMEX, the April platinum contract plummeted $16.10 to $1,033/oz and March
palladium dipped $10.85 to reach $274.50/oz.

     According to one market analyst, the selloff in metals on TOCOM was set
off by equity investors selling off their metals holdings to raise margin
money for their equity accounts. "Apparently, a large brokerage operation got
a lot of investors on the Tokyo stock exchange by publishing false
information" and this led to a suspension of trading. This had a snowball
effect as investors dumped their long positions in precious metals.

		--Ovid Abams, ovid_abrams@platts.com

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