Gold Advances as Allies Attack Libyan Targets, Driving Energy Costs Higher
March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Francisco Blanch, global head of commodities research at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, talks about the outlook for gold and oil prices. Blanch, speaking with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack," also discusses the natural gas industry. (Source: Bloomberg)
Gold climbed for a fourth straight session, touching the highest price in more than a week, after air strikes in Libya boosted investor demand for the precious metal as an investment haven.
Allied officials said two days of missile and aircraft strikes have effectively grounded Muammar Qaddafi’s air force. The Libyan leader denounced the coalition mounting the attacks, which includes the U.S., the U.K. and France, as “the party of Satan.” Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh fired his cabinet yesterday and faced a growing internal revolt.
“The gold market is reacting to the fact that Qaddafi hasn’t folded,” said Frank McGhee, the head dealer at Integrated Brokerage Services LLC in Chicago. “He’s backed into a corner, and if he remains in power under a cease-fire, a significant amount of uncertainty will come out of that region.”
Gold futures for April delivery rose $10.30, or 0.7 percent, to settle at $1,426.40 an ounce at 1:47 p.m. on the Comex in New York. The price, which gained 1.7 percent in the previous three sessions, reached a record $1,445.70 on March 7.
Silver futures for May delivery rose 94.3 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $36.001 an ounce on the Comex. The price climbed to $36.745 on March 7, the highest level since March 1980, the year in which futures reached a record $50.35.
Palladium futures for June delivery rose $11.10, or 1.5 percent, to $742.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Platinum futures for April delivery advanced $21.50, or 1.2 percent, to $1,744.90 an ounce on the Nymex.
To contact the reporter on this story: Pham-Duy Nguyen in Seattle at pnguyen@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.netccarpenterwn:LINK>2@bloomberg.net
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