Precious metals continue to underperform in a declining US stock market. Sector concerns intensified with the strengthening dollar, which broke through a major intermediate term resistance-level at 74, adversely weighing down the price of gold, silver, platinum and mining stocks.

Hope for precious metals bulls can be found in platinum prices which continue to hold and tend to lead the price movements of gold and silver. The mining stocks are rolling over. The "Precious Portfolio" has slightly underperformed the ETF for Amex gold miners (AMEX: GDX [1])--down 8.34% versus 8% for the GDX.

Look for direction in how the GDX and the mining stocks respond as the price of gold hits $850/oz.

The jawboning for a stronger dollar is likely to extend into the weekend during the G-8 meeting. This is setting up as one of the major battles in the war of the worlds, pitting central bankers against gold.

Note that we were stopped out of our position in (NYSE: SWC [2]). The portfolio and sector analysis are presented below:

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