Gold and silver market prices are not straying far from unchanged in midday trading Monday. Gold got a bit of a safe-haven bid overnight due to rising tensions between the U.S. and Iran. However, those gains were lost during the U.S. day session as trader and investor attitudes are still generally upbeat amid U.S. stock index prices that are trending higher and not far below their record highs scored last fall. June gold futures were last up $0.60 an ounce at $1,276.60. May Comex silver was last up $0.005 at $14.96 an ounce. The U.S. is ratcheting up its economic sanctions on Iran. The U.S. intends to eliminate waivers it had granted to some countries that imported Iranian crude oil. Oil prices pushed to a six-month high on the news. The U.S. and Iran have seen their already very strained relations deteriorate further under the U.S. Trump administration. A further, significant deterioration in this situation would likely find better safe-haven demand for gold and silver markets. Asian and European stock indexes were mixed overnight. Some world stock and financial markets are closed Monday due to the Easter holiday. Gold and silver prices got little help from key outside markets that were in a bullish posture for the metals today. The U.S. dollar index was weaker on a corrective pullback after hitting a new high for the year last Thursday. Meantime, Nymex crude oil prices are solidly higher, hit a nearly six-month high and are trading around $65.75 a barrel. Most interesting is the continued uptick of central banks worldwide accumulating gold with the exception of Venezuela which has been selling large amounts of gold from their reserves to keep their obligations to creditors in check. Venezuela’s liquidation is occurring at the same time as two of the three superpowers have been adding to their gold reserves and they are reportedly liquidating U.S. dollars to pay for these purchases. China has been on a buying spree steadily increasing the People’s Bank of China gold reserves. And they aren’t even the biggest fish in the sea. According to Kitco News, the central bank of Russia is also adding gold reserves as they decrease their holdings of U.S. dollars. In a press release on Friday it was announced that the Central Bank of Russia added 18.7 tonnes of gold to its reserves. This raises their gold holdings by almost a full percentage point and takes their total reserves to 69,700,000 troy ounces or 2,167.9 tonnes.