Gold, Silver & Platinium surge in short-covering and year-end book squaring

London (Dec 26)  Precious metals prices surge in early trading, which analysts attribute to short covering and book squaring – particularly an early-morning pop in platinum. “There have been too many bears in the woods,” says George Gero, vice president and precious-metals strategist with RBC Capital Markets Global Futures. Analysts and many traders have been bearish on gold, meaning potential for traders with short positions to cover, he says. The prices increases are occurring amid thin conditions with U.K. and Hong Kong markets closed, which can mean exaggerated moves, traders say. “It doesn’t take a whole lot of volume in thinly traded markets to move the metals,” said a trader of platinum group metals. As of 9:10 a.m. EST, Nymex April platinum was up $23.40 to $1,360 an ounce. The trader says the move appeared to occur despite no market-moving news, as the uptick was ahead of U.S. initial jobless claims. “We see a lot of this kind of stuff into year-end – book squaring and what-not,” he says. “We don’t put a whole lot of stock in it since nothing major came out in the news.” February gold was up $9.60 to $1,212.90 an ounce, March silver was up 38.6 cents to $19.87 and March palladium was up $7.75 to $703.20.