Tokyo gold futures finished firmer on Thursday, holding just short of a 15-year high, with operators shy of testing the upside due to a holiday in the United States and the yen's recovery from a two-year low against the dollar.
Platinum futures tracked gains in New York, but profit-taking kept prices below a record high marked a week earlier, brokers said.
The key October 2006 gold contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange ended up 10 yen per gram at the day's high of 1,911, recovering from a low of 1,895.
On Tuesday the contract rose as high as 1,918 yen, which was the priciest for a TOCOM benchmark contract since September 1990.
"Prices have steadied due to the US holiday. I think the market will resume a bull run next week," a Tokyo broker said, adding that TOCOM gold could go as high as 2,000 yen.
NYMEX metals markets will be closed on Thursday and Friday for the US Thanksgiving holiday.
Speculators had been showing keen interest in gold amid worries about the impact of high crude oil prices, inflation, the US economy and geopolitics.
A rally in TOCOM was also fuelled by the yen's fall against the dollar, brought about by a widening differential between US and Japanese interest rates.
TOCOM benchmark gold has gained 38 percent from this year's low of 1,385 yen set in January, while spot gold has climbed 20 percent from this year's bottom of around $410.
Spot gold was quoted at $494.25/495.00 an ounce at 0630 GMT, up from $491.70/492.50 last quoted in New York.
The dollar was at 118.87/89 yen at 0630 GMT, below last week's 27-month high of 119.58 yen.
The yen has failed to capitalise on a rally in Japanese share indexes to five-year highs, since foreign buying of Japanese stocks this year has been outweighed by hefty purchases of foreign bonds by Japanese investors in search of higher yields.
In the platinum market, TOCOM's benchmark October contract closed up 23 yen per gram at 3,746, after trading between 3,702 and 3,750.
The market has run out of steam after the benchmark contract hit the record high at 3,783 yen last Thursday, brokers said.
The market is also capped by widening gap between platinum and palladium prices, which are likely to encourage end-users to use more palladium instead of platinum, they said.
But underlying sentiment towards platinum remained strong, backed by positive fundamentals and buoyant gold, they said.
London-based refiner Johnson Matthey said last week that the world platinum market was short of supply this year and prices of the rare white metal would likely range between $890 and $1,030 an ounce over the next six months.
Spot platinum was quoted at $983/987 an ounce at 0630 GMT, compared with $972/976 last quoted in New York.
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