Jitters Shake Markets. Precious Gains.

With a much smaller assist from the dollar decline today - but with one nevertheless - gold and silver advanced. Both metals are off their highs but holding a tidy gain from follow-through buying.

We experienced a bit of an anomaly in gold today. Usually, when equities sell off with a vengeance and U.S. bond yields dive, gold is a major beneficiary. Returns on U.S. bonds, particularly the 10-years, must be closely watched by the gold market, given that the metal pays no interest and when yields fall, money tends to migrate to gold. Both instruments are considered safe plays.

Silver was the beneficiary today, up 1% at 4:30 in New York. Of course, silver has been taking a beating and traders saw it as a bargain.

Gold somehow came uncoupled from equities in the afternoon, stalling even as the S&P 500 hit bigger and bigger losses. The S&P fell 2% for the day and has now given back all its gains, turning negative for the year. The NASDAQ is off around 3%.

Futures may be painting an even rosier picture. The closest actively traded gold contract (June) rose $14.60, or 1.1%, to settle at $1,320.50 an ounce Thursday. May silver rose 32 cents, or 1.6%. Some of those gains may be given back tomorrow by profit-takers, however.

Coming up next week is a tricky trading period, given that there are two holy days for two major western religions, Judaism and Christianity... if not in actuality, then in sentiment. Passover shabat and Good Friday both fall on Friday, April 14. These two days also affect Thursday. Traders' minds are often off thinking about family and faith. Secularists just look forward to a long weekend and/or less work.

We should not take our eye off Ukraine. With each rattle of his saber, Vladimir Putin digs a deeper hole for Russia's economy, something it can ill afford. Well before the phony crisis, Russia's economy was faltering terribly. (Growth in January was 0.1%, in February 0.3%. Capital flight in the first quarter was greater than in all of 2013, representing more than 12% of Russian GDP.)

That doesn't mean that the personally power-mad tsar of the new Russia won't create more havoc in the Ukraine. He may be involved in one of those cycles where playing to nationalism distracts the comrades-in-the-streets who, apparently would rather have a slice of an economic and ecological disaster zone - eastern Ukraine - than more money in their moth-eaten pockets. Things inevitably get worse, then the cycle perpetuates itself.

Today, Putin threatened Europe's natural gas supply by hinting via convoluted reasoning that Europe ought to pay Ukraine's past-due bills to Russia, or else.

Russia naively believes its next-best customer is China. That transaction would require building massive pipelines through dauntingly rugged terrain, deserts and not-always-friendly territories. Most likely, Russia would have to turn to China for financing, creating more problems for Putin and his go-it-alone warriors.

As the U.S. and Europe are discovering, though, building infrastructure for gas delivery is a a quickly deliverable silver bullet.

All that turmoil is good for you know who. Yep. Precious metals bulls.

As always, wishing you good trading,