Gold prices set a fresh all-time high on Thursday above $1,225 a troy ounce, supported by renewed weakness of the US dollar and strong money inflows.
Gold held in trust across the largest bullion-backed exchanged traded funds rose to a neak peak of 1,771 tonnes, well above the official gold reserves of some industrialised countries, according to estimates by Barclays Capital.
In London, spot gold rose to an intraday high $1,226.10 a troy ounce, up 1 per cent on the day. It later pared gains to trade at $1.214 a troy ounce. The dollar fell to an intraday low of $1.5141 against the euro.
“Sentiment remains very positive towards gold, and physical exchange traded products holdings continue to crawl higher,” said Suki Cooper, a precious metals analysts at Barclays Capital in London.
Silver rose to an intraday high of $19.43 an ounce while plantinum extended gains above the key $1,500 a troy ounce level.
In the energy market, oil prices firmed. But a large build in US inventories last week depressed the value of the West Texas Intermediate oil against other international benchmarks such as Europe’s Brent and Asia’s Dubai.
Nymex January West Texas Intermediate rose 51 cents to $77.11 a barrel while ICE January Brent jumped 91 cents to $78.75 a barrel. The Brent-WTI premium moved to an intraday high of $1.72 a barrel, the highest in three months.
Strong oil demand in China and elsewhere in Asia continued to lend strong support to Dubai oil. The Brent-Dubai exchange of futures for swaps moved to minus 53 cents, a rare level that signals that oil from the Atlantic basin is moving into the Pacific.
Over the last five years, the Brent-Dubai EFS has only traded weaker in a brief period in January this year, when it plunged to minus $1.02 a barrel.
Among agricultural commodities, white sugar posted a fresh all-time high supported by strong demand for refined sugar. Liffe March white sugar surged more than 1.2 per cent to a peak of $635.2 a tonne. White sugar have risen 94 per cent this year.
Cocoa prices were also strong amid fears that cocoa arrivals in Ivory Coast, the world’s main producers of the chocolate ingredient, will soon slow down. Liffe March cocoa rose to £2,127 a tonne, near a 24-year high. The May contract, which soon will become the market’s benchmark, surged to £2,236 a tonne.
Base metals prices rose in early trading, with copper, aluminium and lead near the highest level of the year. On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months rose to an intraday high of $7,166 a tonne, but later was flat on the day at $7,210 a tonne. Aluminium was flat at $2,144 a tonne.
