Source: Marketwatch.com
San Francisco— Gold futures posted a modest gain Thursday to mark their fourth winning session in a row, but prices closed off the day's high as pressure from strength in the U.S. dollar offset some support from a record U.S. trade deficit and terrorist bombings in Jordan.
Metals will run into resistance as long as the dollar continues to hit new highs, Dale Doelling, chief market technician at Trends In Commodities, said.
If "gold goes negative, watch for a major downside reversal to emerge" in the metal, he warned.
The dollar was only briefly handcuffed Thursday by a reported wider U.S. trade deficit, before it resumed broad gains fueled by a solid Treasury note auction, ongoing corporate profit repatriation and U.S. interest-rate expectations.
Even so, overall, "gold bears have once again failed to break the major uptrend in gold," said Peter Grandich, editor of the Grandich Letter. He cited higher U.S. deficits, bombings in Jordan and "the fact that physical demand for gold remains strong" as factors supporting prices.
Against this backdrop, gold for December delivery rose 20 cents to close at $467.70 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, coming off the $470.90 high they reached earlier.
That was an intraday level that the contract hasn't seen since Oct. 31. Gold prices have tacked on a total of nearly $10 an ounce since Friday.
Prices continued to find support after a Commerce Department report said natural disasters and labor strife combined to push September's trade deficit into record territory at $66.1 billion.
And attacks on three international hotels in Amman, Jordan Wednesday, generated interest in gold, which often climbs in the face of uncertainties related to terrorist events.
Silver climbs; copper at another record high
Also on the metals futures market, December silver rose to an intraday high of $7.79 an ounce, its loftiest since Oct. 31. The contract finished the session up 2.7 cents at $7.705 an ounce.
Rebounding from Wednesday weakness, December copper tacked on 4 cents, or 2.2%, to end at $1.8715 a pound after touching a fresh lifetime high of $1.875 earlier. "After this latest period of consolidation, it appears that the trend in copper is still up," said Doelling.
Rounding out the metals action, January platinum rose $9.30 to close at $965.50 an ounce and December palladium finished at $242.95 an ounce, up $4.30.
As for U.S. inventories, copper supplies were unchanged at 3,690 short tons as of late Wednesday, according to Nymex. Silver stocks were up 4,254 troy ounces at 116.8 million troy ounces, while gold inventories stood at 6.44 million troy ounces, unchanged from the previous session.
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