From Ed Steer:

Both gold and silver began rising unsteadily right from the time Globex trading began in the Far East on Thursday morning, but the party didn't really get started until midway through the London session. From there, prices rose sharply until they got flatlined on the Comex open. Then once the London p.m. fix was in for gold...10 a.m. NY time...both metals really took off. The happiness ended as soon as London closed for the day and the New York boyz had the metals to themselves. The precious metals rally was aided and abetted by a falling US$...and the shares were on fire yesterday.

On Wednesday, gold open interest rose 2,000 contracts and silver o.i. fell 1,956 contracts. The Commitment of Traders will be out later this afternoon. I hope it adds some clarity to the whole situation. I'll report on it tomorrow morning.

I noted in a Reuters story that "Gold sales by signatories of the Central Bank Gold Agreement could be the lowest since the pact was signed in 1999, the World Gold Council said on Wednesday....Around 319 tonnes of gold have been sold so far by the European central banks that signed the agreement, out of a quota of 500 tonnes allowed in each year...Standard Chartered metals analyst Daniel Smith said the low rate of sales demonstrates the importance of gold for central banks as part of their overall reserves." I wouldn't be surprised if no gold was sold in the 2009 CBGA agreement that starts on September 27, 2008. Let's see what they announce next month.

And in another Reuters story..."U.S. consumers should brace for the biggest increase in food prices in nearly 20 years in 2008 and even more pain next year due to surging meat and produce prices, the Agriculture Department said on Wednesday. Food prices are forecast to rise by 5 percent to 6 percent this year, making it the largest annual increase since 1990."

Talking about inflation, here's a graph of what the US government is reporting as the CPI...and what John Williams over at ShadowStats.com says it really is. My guess is that John's numbers are far closer to reality.

The first story today is from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from The Telegraph in London. The European Central bank is beyond alarmed at the number of banks that are totally "addicted to the liquidity window in Frankfurt." This is well worth the read and is entitled "Bank borrowing from ECB is out of control". The link is here.

In today's second story, The Wall Street Journal published a longish article about the US Mint's gold coin shortage and actually mentions GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, Inc.) at the end of the article. The WSJ story is entitled "The Eagle Has Been Grounded"...and it nearly goes without saying that I think the article is worth the read. The link to the GATA dispatch is here.

The last two days of positive closes on the Dow had the fingerprints of Hank and his 'merry men' all over them. Fridays can get pretty ugly. With the Dow not penetrating the 50-day moving average on either Wednesday or Thursday, this rally looks stalled to me. We'll find out soon enough.

Have a good Friday, and all of us at Casey's Daily Resource Plus look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Casey Research correspondent-at-large Ed Steer is a keen observer of the financial scene and a board member of GATA.org.