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Gold is stronger today and hit a fresh four-week high overnight…as of 6:15 am Pacific, the yellow metal is up $13 an ounce at $1,656…physical buying from Asia, in particular China, has reportedly picked up…Silver has gained 51 cents to $30.48…Copper is 6 cents higher at $3.60…Crude Oil is up 53 cents higher at $101.40 while the U.S. Dollar Index is off one-quarter of a point to 80.96 which is helping precious metals this morning…

Dow futures have pulled back after a couple of reports came out at 5:30 am Pacific…U.S. jobless claims rose more than expected, by 24,000 to 399,000, while retail sales were disappointing…they rose at the weakest pace in seven months in December as consumers pulled back late in the holiday shopping season, cutting purchases at department stores and spending less on electronic gadgets…total retail sales increased 0.1% (expectations were for a 0.3% jump) after rising by an upwardly revised 0.4% in November, according to the Commerce Department…

As expected, the European Central Bank has left interest rates on hold, pausing to assess the impact of back-to-back cuts and a slew of other measures it unleashed late last year that are showing some signs of helping fight the euro zone debt crisis…

A stronger than expected auction of Spanish bonds today reduced fears (temporarily at least) about sovereign funding in the euro zone…Spain’s borrowing costs fell at an auction of government bonds that saw solid demand in 2012’s first real test of appetite for debt from the euro zone’s bruised periphery…Italy, meanwhile, paid less than half compared with a month ago to sell one-year bills at its first auction of 2012 today,  highlighting continued support for its short-term debt from cheap funds the European Central Bank injected last month…Italy will launch its 2012 bond issuing campaign tomorrow…

The Bank of England kept its quantitative easing program of asset buying to prop up Britain’s fragile economy at 275 billion pounds on Thursday, opting not to increase it after recent mixed economic data…the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee also kept interest rates at a record low of 0.5% where they have been since March, 2009…

The TSX Venture Exchange fell for the first time yesterday in 9 sessions, losing 11 points to close at 1531…the rising 20 and 10-day moving averages can be expected to provide support and they currently sit at just above 1480 and nearly 1520, respectively…as we mentioned yesterday, there is significant technical resistance around the 1575 level…

GoldQuest Mining (GCQ, TSX-V) released solid results yesterday from the final 7 holes of a 10-hole drill program at its La Escandalosa Sur Property in the Dominican Republic…hole #71 cut 20 metres grading 4.04 g/t Au very close to surface (20 to 40 metres)…other results included 14 metres grading 5.34 g/t Au (#70), 16 metres grading 3.30 g/t Au (#73), 16.22 metres grading 5.50 g/t Au (#75) and 12 metres grading 6.80 g/t Au (#76)…all 10 holes in the 1,070-metre program intersected near-surface mineralization, and the 3.5 km-long geophysical anomaly has been drilled for less than one-third of its length…the results confirm the potential of Escandalosa Sur but much more drilling will be required…the company also has other assets in the DR that hopefully it can advance this year as well to boost shareholder value…GQC had approximately $1.5 million in working capital as of the end of September, so they will likely need to raise more funds during the first half of this year…at current levels (GQC closed at 10 cents yesterday) the stock certainly offers attractive upside potential for patient, long-term investors…John’s chart below shows an important bottom was likely put in at 6 cents last month…

Note: John, Jon and Terry do not hold positions in GQC.

Buying pressure has been increasing in Gold Bullion Development (GBB, TSX-V) recently, a fact confirmed by the Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) Indicator…yesterday, the stock closed above its 50-day moving average (SMA) for the first time since last summer…it could be a couple of months yet before GBB really starts to kick into gear, or alternatively when the NI-43-101 resource estimate for the LONG Bars Zone comes out, but a turnaround appears to be forming…if there’s a confirmed breakout above 17 cents, the next major resistance area is around 21 cents as John shows in this updated GBB chart…

Note: John and Terry hold positions in GBB (Jon does not).

Investors should keep an eye on Spanish Mountain Gold (SPA, TSX-V) which has become quite oversold technically after closing yesterday at 63 cents…the stock has strong support around the 60-cent area where the still-rising 500-day SMA currently sits…below is a long-term monthly SPA chart from John…

Note: Jon, John and Terry do not hold positions in SPA.