It's a GREEN Day for All! Hip Hip Hooray!

Green all across the board on Wednesday as good news emerges from just about everywhere under the sun, moon and stars.

Often times emergency surgeons or doctors at hospitals see so much death in ratio to the number of lives they save that they just absolutely relish the next time they save a life. It's a faint glimmer of hope that keeps them going. Don't worry I'm not asking you to become doctors or watch Grey's Anatomy. What I'm getting at is that in the financial industry, it's a rare day when there is good news world-wide and green across the board.

Wednesday was such a day. Good news on purchasing managers' data erupted from ALL of the big three: China, Europe AND the U.S.! Not only did gold climb to the highest level in eight weeks, but even other commodities, equities and alternative investments got a boost. Of course everything has a price and the dollar opted to take the grenade for all of us when faced with positive news that fewer Americans had filed for jobless benefits. From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of... Earth, thank you mister dollar. Really.

According to data tracked by Bloomberg, spot gold hit $1,751.97 an ounce, a 0.5% rise, and gold holdings in ETF products rose 0.2% to 2,376.2 metric tons - highest since December 16th.

This sort of broad-based positive manufacturing news from the West to the East put a much needed shroud of hope over the debt crisis in Europe. And with India and China being the world's largest bullion consumers, high hopes for precious metals put smiles on commodities investors everywhere.

Another select group of investments that enjoyed some uplifting reports were bullion's little cousin, the coin. U.S. Mint sales of American Eagle silver coins reached a 2nd highest ever in January at 6,107,000 ounces of silver coins sold. Gold coins also received bragging rights as its sales totaled 127,000 ounces last month, the highest since 133,500 ounces in January of 2011. However, many analysts are assigning responsibility for these stats to what they call a "seasonal beginning-of-year effect."

Michael Kramer, president of Manfra, Tordella & Brookes, an authorized purchaser of U.S. Mint gold, silver and platinum coins, says “It’s been a good month,” but describes the month as not overly spectacular considering it’s a January. This is true given the fact that with each new year comes new coins, and the new 2012 issues definitely did give sales quite a boost.

Aside from this seasonal observation, I have to admit that there appears to be more of a predilection towards silver over gold given its more attractive comparative affordability. According to David Morgan, independent precious-metals analyst with Silver-Investor.com, “There is obviously a great deal more interest in the silver market than probably ever before. Silver is still more affordable than gold. People are coming into the market for all kinds of reasons, although primarily wealth preservation and wealth protection and capital appreciation.”

I'm not totally sure what all of these coin sales will lead to in terms of the price gap between silver and gold given the beginning-of-the-year bias, but regardless, I still have to again thank the dollar for making the sacrifice so that the rest of the world can get a rare, non-seasonal great day to remind them that despite hard financial times in various global markets, and especially Europe, there is STILL a reason to keep on trucking.

Ever so Watchful,

- Chris

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