When I finally fired off yesterday’s commentary (to my editor) in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, I must admit that I wasn’t overly optimistic about what I would find when I turned my computer on after a few hours of shut-eye. I was expecting the worst…but got something entirely different.

Gold bounced off its lows of Tuesday a couple of times during London trading, but starting at lunchtime in London, and continuing right until the London close at 3:00 p.m. (10:00 a.m. in N.Y.)…gold managed to inch its way higher. Once London was done for the day, it wasn’t too long before the gold price made a spirited rally on the Comex in New York, and turned what could have been a very ugly day into a surprise to the upside.

Silver put in an even more powerful rally…with the bottom being in at 9:00 a.m. in London trading…and from there

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Just like Friday morning, gold blasted out of the starting gate as soon as Globex trading began in the Far East on Monday morning. And just like Friday morning, this price spike ran into a wall of selling that went on for about four hours. Then there was a respite until 3:00 a.m. New York time when another wave of selling commenced that lasted right through London…and until the Comex open. Then the dealers (mostly JPMorgan, I would think) pulled their bids for the third and last time…and the price of gold cratered another $10…for the third and last time. Silver really got it in the neck on the Comex open. There was nothing free market about this…this was the Gold Cartel…pure and simple. The US$ didn’t even start to rise until after all the damage was done, so you can’t blame it on that.

It was encouraging to see both

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Gold added about $20 to its price in Sydney trading first thing on Monday morning. This lasted right up until Hong Kong trading started a few hours later, and then went into a slow decline from there. This decline lasted through London…and then Comex trading in New York. Gold added to its gains in after-hours Globex trading.

Silver followed a similar path until New York opened. The price spike that ensued quickly got extinguished…and silver got sold off for about 50 cents right into the Comex close. From there the price recovered somewhat.

Volume in gold trading on Monday was still pretty light…but three times heavier than Friday’s volume. The HUI tacked on another 3% to the upside. Considering that the U.S. dollar came within an eyelash of gaining two full cents yesterday, I guess we should be thankful that both metals did as well as they did.

As far as changes in

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Oil falls after two sessions of gains… Israeli offensive goes into fourth day…  OPEC output set to fall further in December

Oil fell below $40 a barrel on Tuesday, pressured by gloom about prospects for world economic growth which outweighed heightened tensions in the Middle East due to the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Prices had jumped as much as 12 percent on Monday after Israel launched its fiercest air offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza strip in decades.

U.S. crude was down 77 cents at $39.25 a barrel by 1151 GMT, having earlier touched a session high of $40.39.

London Brent fell 60 cents to $39.95.

“With most global economies struggling and credit markets still in an impaired state, it is hard to get too excited about the upside potential in energy markets attributable solely to geopolitical factors unless, of course, these are directed at the heart

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Both gold and silver shot up about an hour or so after the Sydney open, only to be smacked into submission very shortly after Hong Kong opened…and that was basically it for the day in both metals. Every rally attempt in gold that got anywhere near $850 got sold…and silver drifted down to around $10.75 before recovering a bit towards the close.

Volume was paper thin yesterday, so it wasn’t difficult for anyone who wanted to, to bend the metal prices to their will. I expect this trading pattern to continue for the balance of the year as the Western world (such as it is) heads into the holiday season. So, unless something totally unexpected appears out of left field over the next two weeks, I don’t expect most markets (including the precious metals) to be any more exciting than watching paint dry.

Open interest in Friday’s trading was as follows…gold o.i.

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In 1971 a nuclear physicist Ralph Lapp used the phrase “China Syndrome” to describe what might happen in an extreme example of a nuclear power plant meltdown. His theory was that the molten core of the reactor might be so hot and toxic that it would burn through the floor of the power plant and sink through the earth’s crust before exiting the other side of the earth through China.

This has never happened in the various nuclear accidents, but it’s a powerful idea that spawned the 1979 movie called The China Syndrome, which was released just 12 days before an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

I only mention it because the idea captures quite nicely the potential economic impact here of a Chinese economic slump. New Zealanders underestimate the impact of Chinese economic boom on the global economy generally and on our own economy.

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It seems we now keep a daily tally of layoffs at the market's biggest companies. Demonstrating that the current economic slide is truly a global phenomenon, London (and Sydney)-based mining company Rio Tinto, Plc (RTP) announced it will be laying of 14,000 workers. This amounts to 12.5% of its employees.Of course -- great news for the stock! Shares are up 20% in early trading on the news. This job-cut move expects to save the company $1.6 billion (in US dollars) by 2010.We await in the coming days an updated equity research report on Rio Tinto from senior analyst Mario Ricchio. Does this huge job cut -- larger than probably any major company's announcement of layoffs this week (so far), which has been a big one for layoff announcements -- do the job of correcting course for Rio Tinto, now that the BHP Billiton (...

Almost from the moment that trading began in the Far East on Monday morning, there was someone there to sell the gold and silver market down. This pressure really began to accelerate to the down side at one of the usual times of day…2:00 a.m. New York time…which is early Monday evening in Sydney, late afternoon in Hong Kong…and first thing in the morning (7:00 a.m.) in London.

Then, the moment the Comex opened for business, the bullion bank(s) pulled their bids and both metals sank like stones…particularly silver. For style points in silver, I give da boyz a 9.5/10. Any bets that it was mostly JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM)? After that pounding, the metals did nothing for the rest of the day. The shares got creamed.

Ted Butler had this to say about it yesterday…”While I certainly didn’t expect it, explaining Monday’s sell-off is pretty easy. It was a dealer-engineered drop

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Almost from the moment that trading began in the Far East on Monday morning, there was someone there to sell the gold and silver market down. This pressure really began to accelerate to the down side at one of the usual times of day…2:00 a.m. New York time…which is early Monday evening in Sydney, late afternoon in Hong Kong…and first thing in the morning (7:00 a.m.) in London.

Then, the moment the Comex opened for business, the bullion bank(s) pulled their bids and both metals sank like stones…particularly silver. For style points in silver, I give da boyz a 9.5/10. Any bets that it was mostly JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM)? After that pounding, the metals did nothing for the rest of the day. The shares got creamed.

Ted Butler had this to say about it yesterday…”While I certainly didn’t expect it, explaining Monday’s sell-off is pretty easy. It was a dealer-engineered drop

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NetSol Technologies, Inc., global provider of financial and other enterprise software solutions and business services, today released positive first quarter 2009 financial results. Quarterly revenues increased 7.5%, to $9.3 million, over the same period last year. Part of this was due to a 33% increase in license fees to $2.5 million. In addition, GAAP net income increased approximately 18%, to $1.0 million, from the same period last year.

Another measure of the company’s operating trends is EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization). NetSol reported EBITDA of $2.3 million for the quarter, a 21% increase over the $1.9 million figure for the same period last year.

As a result of the new figures, NetSol is adjusting fiscal 2009 financial guidance to annual revenue growth of between 20% to 25% over fiscal 2008.

NetSol Chairman and CEO, Najeeb Ghauri, commented on the growth, during what is normally a slow quarter for

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