Forex Special
New York, 30 July 2010 - US gold futures rose for the third day in a row on Friday after US GDP numbers came in weaker than expected.
December gold closed at $1,183.90 per ounce, up $12.70 or 1.08 percent from Thursday’s closing price of $1,171.20 on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex). Prices ranged from an intra-session low of $1,168 to a high of $1,185.80.
Gold prices shed $7.70 or 0.65 percent during the week from last Friday’s closing price of $1,191.60 and also sank $66 or 5.28 percent during the month of July from a closing price of $1,249.90 on June 30.
Gold scaled as high as $1,260 last month as worries about the sovereign debt crisis in Europe reached a peak.
Today, more physical buying came from Asia as jewellers wanted to secure bullion before US GDP figures were released and then safe-haven buying increased after the GDP numbers failed to match forecasts.
US GDP rose 2.4 percent in the second quarter, shy of forecasts of 2.6 percent growth and down from an upwardly revised 3.7 percent in the first quarter this year.
"With the US and European economies still facing a host of problems that will not be fixed for a long while - sovereign debt, personal debt, an anaemic housing market - there are still likely to be crises emerging from time to time that make investors skittish and return to gold," said broker Nell Sloane at NS Futures.
A weaker dollar also underpinned gold prices for much of the session - the greenback dropped as low as 1.3093 against the euro, not far from yesterday’s three-month low of 1.3106, but then recovered to 1.3038.
"Gold has retreated from its recent high of $1,225 per ounce in part because of some relaxation in sovereign risk. If history is any judge, the gold bull rally will not end until the market is confident again in paper currency and monetary policy is restored," analyst James Steel at HSBC said in a report.
In other precious metals, September silver climbed 38.6 cents or 2.2 percent to close at $18.003 per ounce on the Comex.
"Silver Silver appears to be taking its cues more from gold than from the stock market and other industrial commodities this week," said Sloane.
The Dow was static on Friday, dropping a mere 0.01 percent to close at 10,466 points.
Platinum and palladium futures also followed gold’s lead on Friday - October platinum went up $13.40 or 0.9 percent to close at $1,576.80 per ounce and September palladium grew $8.80 or 1.8 percent to close at an even $500 per ounce.
