(OroyFinanzas.com) – It was an extremely boring day for gold. In Asia the yellow metal gradually lost ground as it failed to go above $627 levels. Persistent selling from the general public brought us two dollars lower where it remained trading sideways until Tocom close.

During the European hours the precious metal remained bounded by a narrow range. Bids kept appearing below $625 and offers above $627. In its regular weekly consolidated financial statement the ECB said that gold and gold receivables fell by 28million euros in the week ending on the 12th of January. This was due to the sale of the metal by one euro zone central bank and the sale of gold coins by another. After the opening of the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange one of the earliest monthly guide posts to US factory conditions was out. NY Fed’s empire state general factory conditions index fell to 9.13 in January, its lowest since mid-2005.

The empire state manufacturing survey is a monthly survey of manufactures in New York State conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Participants from a range of industries fill a questionnaire and report changed in a selection of indicators from the previous month. The figures from the month of December were also downwardly revised. After the worse than expected data, which was accompanied by news that Iran was claiming they shot down a US spy plain in its air space, the high was extended to$628.20. However in the absence of interest and any follow through buying the market subsequently retreated to extend the low to $623.40. The losses could not be recovered as quickly as they accrued. The yellow metal hovered on the bottom of the intraday range to then finally settle at $625.75. We believe that as soon as gold was unable to breach the $630 resistance and obtain a clear upside direction, it is likely to remain within the $621-630 range in the short term.

Silver once again remained very quiet in the Far East, bounded by the same as yesterday $12.80-12.93 range. During the early European hours the white metal extended the Asian low to $12.76 with $12.90 still providing a firm resistance. The prices fixed at $12.84 in London, down 4.5 cents compared to Monday’s fixing. The market was stagnant in NY until about two hours before the close when silver followed its sister metal in its retreat. Spot plunged sharply and eventually extended the low to $12.58. Prices had difficulty recovering to finally settle near the lows. In the absence of strong buying interest we believe that we are back to range trading for the time being, with the $12.50 level providing a firm supportand $13 a psychological resistance.

MKS Gold & Silver, Daily Report
By Lidia Nazarova

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