Gold hovered around the break-even $970 mark through Hong Kong, London and the New York session past the noon hour, but then suddenly shifted gears and rose through the rest of the Comex and the Globex, finishing a second straight solid day at $983.50/oz., up $14.00. Overnight, gold has slipped lower.
Platinum broke past $1110 in European trading, then toyed with $1100 for the rest of the day, finally ending just short of it at $1099/oz., up $12. Overnight, platinum has fallen off.
Silver was in positive territory for nearly the whole day, wobbling between $14.10 and $14.30, before finding firm ground in the afternoon hours and closing at $14.34/oz., up 23 cents. Overnight, silver is trending lower. (Click here for charts) <
The precious metals followed Tuesday’s banner day with another strong effort, with all of them well into the green. And again, as on the previous day, gold advanced despite lack of cooperation from the usual suspects, as the dollar strengthened and crude slipped slightly lower.
Gold appears to be setting an emphatic punctuation point on its safe haven status as it decouples from the influences that have been its driving factors for such a long time.
Bulls are yakking it up. With gold now within spitting distance of its alltime high of $1003, the chat can become self-reinforcing. As Kitco’s Jon Nadler put it, talk of “gunning for the $1,000 level” should keep buyers at the helm.
Investment in the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD), the biggest exchange-traded fund backed by bullion, is still going gangbusters, too. GLD holdings shot past the 1,000 metric ton mark yesterday, to a record 1,008.8 tons, or better than 32.4 million ounces.
Overall, worldwide gold demand surged 26% to 1,036.5 metric tons (more than 33.3 million ounces) in 4Q08 as the financial crisis spread and every other asset tanked, the World Gold Council said yesterday in its quarterly report.
The WGC also reported that for all of 2008, the flight to quality pushed dollar demand for gold past the $100 billion mark for the first time ever, to $102B. That was a 29% increase over year-earlier levels.
As stock markets shed an estimated $14 trillion in ’08, identifiable investment demand for gold, which incorporates exchange traded funds (ETFs), bars and coins, was 64% higher than in 2007, the WGC said.
Source: Precious Metals Log More Gains
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