In the precious metals markets this week . . .

GOLD:
Monex spot gold prices opened the week at $1,412 . . . traded as high as $1,440 on Thursday and as low as $1,412 on Monday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on  Friday was $1,428, up $16 for the week.  Gold support is now anticipated at $1,418, then $1,403, and then $1,387 . . . with resistance anticipated at $1,438, then $1,455, and then $1,500.

SILVER:
Monex spot silver prices opened the week at $36.52 . . . traded as high as $37.96 on Thursday and as low as $36.52 on Monday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $37.72, up $1.20 for the week.  Silver support is now anticipated at $37.37, then $36.90, and then $36.42 . . . and resistance anticipated at $37.88, then $38.25, and then $39.00.

PLATINUM:
Monex spot platinum prices opened the week at $1,726 . . . traded as high as $1,781 on Thursday and as low as $1,726 on Monday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $1,774, up $48 for the week.  Platinum support is now anticipated at $1,765, then $1,740, and then $1,704 . . . and resistance anticipated at $1,790, then $1,807, and then $1,863.

PALLADIUM:
Monex spot palladium prices opened the week at $738 . . . traded as high as $775 on Friday and as low as $738 on Monday . . . and the Monex AM settlement price on Friday was $774, up $36 for the week.  Palladium support is now anticipated at $768, then $738, and then $704 . . . and resistance anticipated at $777, then $797, and then $822.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK:

From John Melloy, in a posting on the ''Fast Money'' section of the CNBC website on March 28th:

''Mother nature, one could say, is the ultimate asset allocator over a long enough time span. Going by that notion, silver is very undervalued versus gold.

Silver is about 16 times as plentiful in the earth's crust as gold, according to John Stephenson, author of the 'The Little Book of Commodity Investing.'

Yet, the price of gold per ounce currently trades at about 38 times that of silver.

According to the basic laws of supply and demand, especially given that the two metals are quite similar, the price gap between the two metals should be much smaller.

'It basically has the same physical characteristics of gold as a store of value and it also has an industrial kicker,' said Stephenson, a portfolio manager for FirstAsset Management in Canada. 'For my money, the trade of the decade will be in silver. Gold was the best investment over the last decade, but in the future, silver will be the go-to investment for investors looking to ride out the current storms in the global economy.'

Gold has jumped about five-fold in the last decade as investors flocked to the metal.  They went there first for safety from two bear markets, but then for an inflation hedge as the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to zero.

Historically, gold sells for about 30 times the price of silver.  Since gold is currently selling at about 38 times, silver is undervalued by about 27 percent and should be closer to $47 an ounce instead of $37.''

. . . and from Murray Coleman, in a blog posting on the Barron's website on March 31st:

With 75% of the U.S. federal budget devoted to non-discretionary and entitlement programs, Pimco's Bill Gross writes in his April Investment Outlook that 'we are smelling $1 trillion deficits as far as the nose can sniff.'

The bond guru serves as co-chief investment officer and a founder of the Newport Beach, Calif.-based asset management firm. He also runs the world's biggest bond mutual fund, the Pimco Total Return Fund.

In his latest outlook piece now up on Pimco's website, Gross notes that three categories alone -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- now account for 44% of total federal spending.

The 'true but unrecorded debt of the U.S. Treasury is not $9.1 trillion or even $11-$12 trillion when agency and student loan liabilities are thrown in, but $65 trillion more!' he writes.

If the U.S. government was a corporation, Gross maintains, 'then it would probably have a negative net worth of $35-$40 trillion.'

Without big cuts in entitlements, Gross paints a not-so-rosy picture. He writes:

'Unless entitlements are substantially reformed, I am confident that this country will default on its debt; not in conventional ways, but by picking the pocket of savers via a combination of less observable, yet historically verifiable policies -- inflation, currency devaluation and low to negative real interest rates.' ''

. . . and from an editorial on the ''Issues & Insights'' page of Investor's Business Daily on April 1st:

''Budget: Congressional negotiators have trumpeted a 'breakthrough' in budget talks that will yield $33 billion in spending cuts.  Sorry, but we're not impressed.

We've done the math on this, and the $33 billion in cuts amounts to just 0.89% of expected spending of $3.7 trillion this year.  It is just 2.2% of the deficit.

In short, it's a pittance, so minuscule in the grand scheme of things it can't be taken seriously.  Put another way, the deficit this year will equal 40% of the budget.  This 'cut' would reduce that to 39%. It's not enough.

What's dispiriting is that Republicans had tried to cut a piddling $73 billion from our $1.5 trillion deficit and couldn't get to first base with the Democrats.  What will happen when the serious talks start on the 2012 budget and beyond?  We're not optimistic.''

. . . and from Stephen Moore, in an editorial on the ''Opinion'' page of The Wall Street Journal on April 1st:

''If you want to understand better why so many states -- from New York to Wisconsin to California -- are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic:  Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million).  This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse.  More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined.  We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers.  Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees.  Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?''

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