Goldprices are solidly higher and near the daily highs in early-afternoon U.S.trading Thursday and hit another six-month high today.Meantime, silver prices are scoring modest gains and pushed to a five-monthhigh today.  The technically important $1,300.00 level is within strikingdistance for the gold bulls, which if hit would likely trigger heavy buy stoporders in the futures market. February goldfutures were last up $9.30 an ounce at $1,293.30. March Comexsilver was up $0.121 at $15.77 an ounce.

The Thursday morning December ADP nationalemployment report came in at up 271,000, which was much higher than theconsensus forecast of up 178,000. The December number was the highestgrowth rate in 2018. U.S. stock indexes rebounded a bit from their solidovernight losses, which in turn prompted the gold and silver markets to backdown modestly from their early highs. However, as U.S. stocks fell back lowersoon thereafter, gold regained its overnight price advances.

European and Asian stock markets were mostly downtoday. A surprising warning from Appleabout slowing sales, especially in China, helped to sink global stock indexes.The Apple news only added to worries about the major economies of the worldseeing significantly slower growth rates in 2019.

Currency markets in Asia were roiled overnight,led by a big jump in the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar. The Britishpound and the Canadian dollar slumped against the greenback. Other currenciesalso experienced higher volatility. Some market watchers blamed the downbeatApple news, released after the U.S. stock market closed on Wednesday. Othersblamed thin, post-holiday trading conditions for the currency gyrations,including Japan’s markets being closed for a holiday.

There are also lingering concerns about the U.S.government shutdown that is well into its second week.