Gold ended higher on Monday, above $900 an ounce, after scaling a near-four week peak on the back of speculative buying as oil hovered around its record high, fanning fears of inflation. Platinum tracked gold's gains and jumped to its highest level in more than two months ahead of a supply and demand report by precious metals refiner Johnson Matthey before retreating as speculators booked profits.
Johnson Matthey said platinum may spike to a record high of $2,500 an ounce this year and the market is expected to close 2008 in a significant deficit due to production shortfalls and strong metal demand.
Spot gold hit a high of $913.35 an ounce, its highest level since April 23. It was last at $905.00/906.40 an ounce by New York's last quote at 2:15 pm EDT (1815 GMT), up from $899.55/900.95 late in New York on Friday. However, bullion remained below a lifetime high of $1,130.80 hit on March 17.
Previous attempts to revisit the record high have been met by heavy profit taking, which saw gold fall to a four-month low of $845 an ounce in early May. US gold futures for June delivery on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange finished up $5.90 at $905.80 an ounce.
Spot platinum was at $2,146/2,161 an ounce from its Friday finish of $2,126/2,141 an ounce late in New York. It earlier hit an intraday high of $2,174 an ounce - its loftiest level since March 7. Platinum struck a record high of $2,290 an ounce on March 4 after a power crisis in main producer South Africa disrupted mining and sparked fear of a supply deficit.
In other precious metals, spot silver edged up to $16.98/17.04 an ounce from its previous finish of $16.90/17.00 late in New York. Spot palladium was at $446/451 an ounce, higher than the $443/451 posted late on Friday in New York.
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