Crude oil briefly dipped below $55 a barrel yesterday for the first time in 22 months prompted by reports, warning that demand will be significantly weaker in 2009 due to the global economic downturn.

Despite this, Gold gained slightly on the news that Chinese investors' demand had surged in the first nine months of 2008. Gold is currently trading at $728 after closing in New York on Wednesday at $710.30.

In wealth preservation terms, Gold is still doing an admirable job

The great global deleveraging continues. In a world that has become addicted to debt fuelled growth, the idea that readily available credit may no longer be available, has scared many into facing the truth; credit is not free and should never have been priced as such. Over the past few weeks markets have continue to sell off, outlook for production and consumption are all bearish and thus oil continues its volatile ride losing $2 overnight to its current level of $58 a barrel.

Gold and silver were up another 2% yesterday as bargain hunters continue to bottom feed.

Gold continues to consolidate between $700/oz and $760/oz and looks set to rechallenge $800/oz in the coming days as safe haven buying reemerges on continuing concerns regarding the global financial system and economy.

Gold was down marginally yesterday (some 1%).

Gold and silver both surged some 4% yesterday from oversold levels as the dollar weakened and oil surged. We said some weeks ago that the recent sell off in precious metals was likely to end around election day and believe that this has indeed happened and that gold will resume its secular bull market in the coming weeks.

Gold was up marginally yesterday despite further strength in the dollar and a further sharp fall in the oil price.

Gold continues to surprise to the downside on the COMEX and the futures markets in spite of huge physical demand, increasing supply issues and surging premiums on bullion products.

Speculative paper players using huge leverage continue to exit positions for the relative safety of cash due to margin calls on other bets and some investment banks continue to short gold despite the incredibly strong fundamentals for bullion itself.

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Gold rose nearly 2% yesterday as the Federal Reserve decreased the fed funds rate by 50 basis points to 1.00%. Other central banks internationally are also slashing interest rates and there is increasing speculation that the Bank of England and the ECB may cut interest rates aggressively as early as this week and possibly even today in an effort to prevent international financial contagion causing a sharp global recession.

NB Please note that our Performance Table is in euros (EUR) today.