Daily Gold Update

Source: Dr. Bill Musgrave, American Gold Exchange

Austin— Gold gained 1.9% to close at $1,715, as risk assets rallied across the board. With the uncertainty of the hotly-contested U.S. presidential election nearly over, the markets appear optimistic that pro-growth policies will continue regardless of the victor. Traders generally see an Obama victory as more bullish for gold because Romney has been vocally unsupportive of Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's programs of quantitative easing, which have helped to drive gold prices higher since 2008. The S&P GSCI gauge of 24 commodities climbed as much as 2.1%, oil jumped by more than 3.2%, and the Dow finished 1% higher while the dollar fell. Silver and palladium outpaced gold, adding 2.9% and 2.8%, respectively, while platinum picked up 1%.

At the Comex close: December gold rallied $31.80 to $1,715; December silver jumped 91 cents to $32.03; January platinum added $15.60 to $1,558.30; and December palladium rose $17.15 to $620.15 an ounce.

John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, said today that the Fed has room to buy more Treasuries without disrupting the market. A voting member of the FOMC, Williams thinks the Fed should start buying Treasuries outright again at the beginning of the year, in conjunction with the purchases of mortgage-backed securities already taking place under QE3. "It's going to take along time for unemployment to come down and growth to really pick up," he told reporters after a speech in Irvine, so the Fed should plan to buy more than $600 billion in bonds by extending QE3 well into next year.