MW: Gold rises for third day on weaker dollar, geopolitical tension
By Moming Zhou, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures rose for a third session, climbing above $1,110 an ounce Monday as a weaker dollar and political tensions in Iran raised gold's investment appeal.
Gold for December delivery, the thinly traded contract due to expire Tuesday, advanced 0.7% to $1,111.50 an ounce, while the most actively traded February contract rose 0.4% to $1,109.60.
Gold ended last week's trading down slightly, recovering after having touched a seven-week low early on.
"The rise [in gold] is likely due to rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East," said Brian Kelly, chief executive of Kanundrum Research, a commodities and macroeconomic research firm.
"Technically, gold bounced nicely off of $1,070 support," he added. "I would expect that the metal consolidates those gains as year-end approaches."
Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people opposed to the current Iranian regime took to the streets in a reprise of the protests that followed the country's elections in June. Iranian state television on Monday said that at least 15 people were killed.
In currencies trading, the dollar fell against most of its major rivals, with the dollar index (DXY 77.57, -0.11, -0.14%) down 0.4% to 77.565.
A weaker greenback tends to push up dollar-denominated commodities prices. Crude-oil futures, which are also denominated in the dollar, rose for a fourth session.
Holdings in SPDR Gold Trust (GLD 108.77, +0.41, +0.38%) , the biggest gold exchange-traded fund, stood at 1,132.71 metric tons as of Thursday. While unchanged for a fourth day, this amount remains the highest level seen since early June.
As for the trading in other metals, January platinum rose 1.2% to $1,485.50 an ounce, but March palladium slid 0.4% to $388.15 an ounce. March silver rose 0.9% to $17.59 an ounce as March copper gained 0.7% to $3.3165 a pound.
In what will be a thin week on the data front,, economists surveyed by MarketWatch are forecasting an increase to 54 in December from November's 49.5 when the Conference Board releases its consumer confidence index on Tuesday. See Economic Review.
