LONDON—The spot price of gold hit a one-month high as market players said they saw the return of another uptrend for the yellow metal.
Gold touched $1,377.85 a troy ounce Wednesday, a one-month record, but recently was trading at $1,374.20, up 90 cents, or 0.1%, on the day.
While higher-than-expected U.K. inflation figures provided a boost for the yellow metal, technical buying has driven Wednesday's mvoe, said traders and analysts.
"The threat of rising inflation has been lingering for a while, and is already largely factored into the gold price," noted a trader. More significant to gold's strength is its break through a series of key resistance levels, he said, including $1,370.
"People are buying dips because it looks it like the short-term downtrend has been broken," the trader noted.
"The sentiment toward gold and silver is much friendlier at the moment, though volumes are rather low," noted UBS analyst Edel Tully. She said while the re-emergence of sovereign debt fears on the back of a steep rise in Portuguese bond yields last week hasn't sent investors flocking to "safe haven" gold, a more material knock in confidence over euro zone debt could trigger a renewed flow of bids into gold.
Spopt silver was up two cents, or 0.1%, at $30.80 an ounce.
Spot palladium is trading near 10-year highs, buoyed by a recovering U.S. gasoline-fuelled car market, which favors high-palladium loadings, said Crédit Agricole analyst Robin Bhar. It recently was off $2, or 0.1%, at $1,829 an ounce. Spot palladium was up $2, or 0.2%, at $837 an ounce.
