By Anjli Raval and Javier Blas in London , Financial Times, 4 Dec 2009
Gold lost all its weekly gains on Friday, sharply down from a record high hit on Thursday.
The drop came after the dollar rallied on the back of official data showing that the US economy in November shed the fewest jobs since the recession started two years ago.
The better-than-expected data sent gold prices down to $1,166.8 a troy ounce, a drop of more than 4.5 per cent from Thursday's record high of $1,226.1 an ounce, leaving an 0.8 per cent weekly decline.
The fall in gold prices came as Deutsche Bank warned that a correction was "looming" for bullion.
"History would suggest this could unfold in the first four weeks of the new year, in our view," Michael Lewis, head of commodities research at the German bank, said in a report.
Other precious metals were also sharply down on Friday, but silver was up 1.5 per cent on the week to $18.51 a troy ounce.
Oil prices were volatile on the week with West Texas Intermediate under pressure versus Brent from surging stocks in the US.
Nymex January WTI fell 0.8 per cent on the week to $75.47 a barrel. ICE January Brent rose 0.4 per cent to $77.52 a barrel.
Beyond the daily volatility, oil has traded in a narrow band between $80 and $75 a barrel for most of the past month and a half.
Among agricultural and soft commodities, cocoa and sugar prices were strong.
Cocoa futures jumped to the highest level in nearly 25 years following market talk of a small crop in Ghana, the second-largest producer after Ivory Coast.
Liffe March cocoa in London surged to an intraday high of £2,243 a tonne, the highest level since February 1985. The contract for delivery in May, which will become the market's benchmark from mid-December, surged to £2,254 a tonne.
On top of Ghana, the bullish market had its roots in Ivory Coast, which delivered 40 per cent of the world's cocoa and had produced a small crop in 2008-2009.
Traders fear that the country's ageing trees will deliver a small crop again in 2009-2010, in spite of favourable weather.
