Gold may climb even more on the year as the dollar drops and bolsters demand for alternative investments. Dollar weakness supports gold and it has so far declined 1.3% on the year and another .6% as Greek lawmakers approved austerity measures.
By Debarati Roy
February 13, 2012, 11:50 AM EST
Business Week
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Gold, little changed in New York, may climb for the second time in three sessions as the dollar’s drop bolsters demand for the precious metal as an alternative investment.
The dollar declined as much as 0.6 percent against a basket of currencies as Greek lawmakers approved austerity measures, clearing the way for another international bailout. Before today, gold jumped 10 percent this year as the dollar declined 1.3 percent on increasing optimism that Europe’s debt crisis can be tamed.
“The dollar’s weakness is supporting gold,” Phil Streible, a senior commodity broker at R.J. O’Brien & Associates in Chicago, said in a telephone interview.
Gold futures for April delivery rose less than 0.1 percent to $1,726 an ounce at 11:26 a.m. on the Comex in New York. The price swung between gains and losses today, earlier advancing as much as 0.6 percent and falling as much as 0.4 percent.
Silver futures for March delivery gained 0.3 percent to $33.71 an ounce in New York.
--With assistance from Nicholas Larkin in London. Editors: Millie Munshi, Thomas Galatola
To contact the reporters for this story: Debarati Roy in New York at droy5@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Patrick McKiernan at pmckiernan@bloomberg.net
