Gold Prices Fall On Fresh Troubles In Europe

They all closed lower. The reason was ... as usual ... trouble in the Eurozone. European leaders in Brussels told Greek leaders to go back home and get their parliament to approve the austerity plan they had come from Athens to present. Austerity is the price Greece has to pay for getting $172 billion in bailout money. Greece's parliament may or may not vote on the new ... more stringent ... austerity plan. Even if they do ... it's not clear it'll pass. If today's rioting in Greece is any indication ... it seems that people in that country have had it with budget cuts, reduced pensions and higher taxes.Certainly ... the market had had it today with all that drama. Stocks on both sides of the Atlantic fell and commodities lost value too. Gold, silver, platinum and palladium all closed lower.Besides being a rough Friday ... it's been a rough week for precious metals.Gold has fallen from $1,740.30 to $1,720.80 ... silver has gone from $33.75 to $33.17 ... and palladium slipped from $708.85 to $703.05.The one bright spot this week has been platinum. Even though it lost value today ... for the week it's up 1.7 percent because of production problems in South Africa.Gold for April delivery was off $15.90 to $1,725.30 ... while gold for immediate delivery fell$12.20 to $1,728.28.  Silver for March delivery declined 31 cents to $33.60 ... while spot silver slipped 34 cents to $33.56.