Daily Gold Update

Source: Myra P. Saefong, CBS.MarketWatch.com

New York— Shares of most metals companies climbed for a third-straight day as gold futures prices inched higher amid an overall decline in U.S. stocks Thursday.

Investor interest in the sector increased as a hedge against losses.

Gold traders have been assessing the effects of the strong U.S. dollar as well as a mixture of views about the economic outlook and the geopolitical backdrop, analysts at the World Gold Council wrote in a daily note.

�As far as gold trading is concerned, there have been sporadic bursts of buying, notably from Australia and from the physical market, offset against professional selling,� the analysts said.

On Thursday, economic data on durable goods and the employment cost index indicate that the U.S. economy is still not out of the woods yet, said PeakTradingGroup.com analyst Charles Nedoss. This has put some support under the gold as the equities have come under some pressure, he said.

In recent trading, the Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index traded at 52.7, up 0.7 percent from the previous session.

The CBOE Gold Index rose to 39.13, up 0.5 percent. And the Amex Gold Bugs Index stood at 65.2, up 0.3 percent.

Among the indexes� components, shares of Anglogold tacked on 39 cents to $16.07 and Newmont Mining added 26 cents to $21.50 but Freeport-McMoran Copper and Gold slipped 10 cents to stand at $10.65.

Over on the futures market, gold for December delivery inched up to trade at $277.30, up 90 cents on the Commodities Exchange division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In other metals trading, December silver fell by 1.5 cents to $4.205 an ounce. January platinum gained $2.90 to $413 an ounce and December palladium fell 50 cents to $318 an ounce.

December copper traded up 0.1 cent at 62.35 cents a pound.

Data as of late Wednesday on Comex gold, silver and copper inventories weren�t available Thursday. As of late Tuesday, gold inventories at Comex were unchanged at 1.01 million ounces. Silver stocks were also flat at 103.6 million ounces. Comex copper stocks, by late Tuesday, rose by 428 short tons to reach 208,337.