All Eyes Turning to Portugal as Greek Default a Reality/FOMC report: ZIRP until 2014

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen;

Gold closed up today by a rather large $33.60 to $1699.80. Silver also responded in kind rising by $1.16 to $33.09. Gold and silver responded with the FOMC announcement that zero rate interest policy (ZIRP)
will be with us for at least until 2013 and 2014. Gold and silver were down before the announcement, but then jubilation erupted with the news sending all bourses and commodities higher including the Dow. We will go into the FOMC announcement in the body of my commentary but first let us head over to the comex and assess trading, inventory movements and delivery notices.

Here are the prices of gold and silver at 5 pm from the access market:

Gold; $1710.30
silver: $33.28

The total gold comex OI fell by 9610 contracts to 427,032 from yesterday's level of 436,642. The raid certainly had an effect on some of our gold longs. You will see in the silver section, the raid had no effect as silver is in extremely strong hands. The front options expiry month of gold saw its OI fall from 14 to 11 for a loss of 3 contracts. We had two delivery notices yesterday so we lost only 1 contract to cash settlements.
We are rapidly approaching the delivery month of February. The open interest for this month fell from 139,274 to 121,002 which is very low. Many rolled into the next delivery month of April. We will have to wait and see how many of February will stand for delivery.

The total silver comex OI hardly budged in total contrast to gold. It fell a measly 5 contracts to 103,025.
The front options expiry month of January saw its OI fall from 99 to 41 for a loss of 58 contracts. We had 97 delivery notices yesterday so we gained 39 contracts of additional silver oz. standing.
The next delivery month for silver is March and here the OI again hardly budged falling by less than 100 contracts to 51,522. The estimated volume today at the silver comex was tame in comparison to gold coming in at 41,164. The confirmed volume at the silver comex yesterday was extremely meek at 32,614.
It seems only the strong willed and determined investors are willing to play with the crooked bankers.