Gold Prices Rise Sharply; Silver Prices Also Gain
Gold prices rose sharply in trading on Thursday, hitting an eleven-month high, following comments from European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi. Silver prices also rose on Thursday, while Platinum prices surged amid renewed supply concerns.
Gold gained after the ECB President said that the central bank was prepared to buy bonds of troubled euro zone countries if they asked for aid. The ECB also kept its benchmark interest rates unchanged at a record low to boost economic growth.
Speaking to Reuters, Axel Merk, Chief Investment Officer of Merk Funds, said that Draghi’s going to make sure that the market doesn’t fall apart and for gold that is a positive because the move is reducing the risk of something really bad happening.
Spot gold rose nearly 1% to $1,796.50 an ounce, which is the highest level since mid-November 2011. Gold futures for delivery in December on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange climbed $15.80 to $1,793.10 an ounce.
Silver prices also rallied on Thursday, with spot silver climbing 0.9% to $34.88 an ounce.
In late trading on Thursday, the iShares Silver Trust (ETF) (NYSE: SLV) was up 1.13% to $33.89, the ProShares Ultra Silver (ETF) (NYSE: AGQ) was up 2.08% to $59.77, and the ProShares UltraShort Silver (ETF) (NYSE: ZSL) was down 2.18% to $39.08.
Platinum rose sharply on Thursday following reports that South African police fired tear gas at striking miners near the Rustenburg operations of platinum producer, Anglo American Platinum. At last check, spot platinum was trading almost 2% higher at $1,712.74 an ounce. Palladium also rose sharply. At last check, spot palladium was trading 3.3% higher at $670.22 an ounce.
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Post Written By: Ed Liston
Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.
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