Gold futures rose nearly 3% Friday to above $870 an ounce as investors bought the metal on the heels of rising oil prices and sinking retail sales. In thin trading, gold for February delivery ended up $23.20, or 2.7%, at $871.20 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gold finished the week up 4%. For the year, it has also risen 4% so far. Crude-oil futures jumped 5.4% to above $37 a barrel Friday, following their 9.3% slump in the previous session. Rising oil prices tend to push up gold prices as they increase the metal's appeal as a hedge against inflation. See Futures Movers. Aggressive price discounting by U.S. retailers was apparently to no avail. Data released Friday by MasterCard Inc.'s SpendingPulse unit showed total retail sales, excluding automobiles, fell by 5.5% in November over the year-earlier period and by 8% in December through Christmas Eve. See full story. "As more bad financial news hit markets and industry and retailing, gold will confirm the resumption of its long-term upward trend," said Julian Phillips, editor at GoldForecaster.com. The nearby December contract, which expires Dec. 29, was also higher, ending at $870.40 an ounce. Open interest, or the number of outstanding contracts for December delivery, stood at 212 as of Friday, or 21,200 ounces, according to Comex data. Gold inventories held by Comex for futures delivery stood at 2,832,883 ounces as of Wednesday, unchanged from a day ago, according to the latest data from the exchange. In currencies trading, the dollar was lower against the euro but was trading higher against the British pound and the Japanese yen. The dollar index , which tracks the value of the greenback against its major rivals, was last up 0.1%. Gold prices and the dollar tend to move in the opposite direction. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded gold fund, stood at 775.33 tons Wednesday, unchanged from a day ago and up 20 tons from a month ago, according to the latest data from the fund. The SPDR Gold Trust rose 2.5% to $85.51. In gold spot trading, the London gold-fixing price -- a benchmark for gold traded directly between big institutions -- stood at $836.75 an ounce Wednesday morning, down $6.75 from Tuesday afternoon. In other metals trading, March silver futures rose 1.7% to $10.53 an ounce. January platinum gained 3.6% to $890.20 an ounce, and March palladium rose 0.6% to $176 an ounce. March copper added 2.3% to $1.3035 a pound. The iShares Gold Trust exchange-traded fund rose 2.6% to $85.67, while the iShares Silver Trust ETF ) added 1.5% to $10.43. The Amex Gold Bugs Index , which tracks the share prices of major gold companies, rose 3.6% to 286.42. The Market Vectors-Gold Miners ETF gained 4.2% to $31.87.

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