Daily Gold Update

Source: Bloomberg

New York— Gold surged to the highest price since March 2008, heading for a fourth-straight weekly gain, as a dollar slump lengthened, boosting demand for the metal as a hedge against inflation. Silver climbed to a 13-month high. The U.S. Dollar Index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback�s value, has dropped for six consecutive sessions, the longest slump since March, to an 11-month low. Crude-oil prices, used by some investors as a gauge of future inflation, have jumped 61 percent this year. Oil rose today on reports of renewed violence along Israel�s border with Lebanon. �The dollar is going down because of inflation fears� and that pushes gold up, said Leonard Kaplan, the president of Prospector Asset Management in Evanston, Illinois. He has been trading gold for more than three decades. �There is too much money and everything is going up. It�s not about supply and demand, it�s not about common sense.�

Gold futures for December delivery advanced $15.10, or 1.5 percent, to $1,011.90 an ounce at 10:45 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange�s Comex division, bringing this week�s gain to 1.5 percent. Earlier, the metal touched $1,013.70, the highest price for a most-active contract since March 17, 2008. On that date, gold reached a record $1,033.90 in New York. �A combination of rocket fire along Israel�s northern border with Lebanon and the looming prospect Israel will take unilateral action against Iran�s nuclear facilities has gold at an 18-month high,� said Ralph Preston, a Heritage West Futures Inc. analyst in San Diego. �A conflagration in the Middle East holds the possibility of disrupting oil supplies from the region, threatening the global recovery.� See full story.