US gold futures rose to a 6-week high early on Thursday, extending Wednesday's fast-paced rally as investors sought precious metals as a safe haven after central banks injected liquidity to calm nerves in global markets. December gold was up $22.20, or 2.6 percent, at $872.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:57 am EDT (1457 GMT).
In early electronic trading, gold reached a high of $897.40, its highest level since August 5. Its low was $855.90. Thursday's gains came on top of previous session's 9 percent surge - the biggest one-day percentage gain for gold futures since February 2000.
Gold turned higher after the world's top central banks joined forces to make billions of dollars available to global markets. The Central Bank move was a dramatic effort to free up bank-to-bank lending due to the recent financial meltdown on Wall Street.
Run-up in gold futures was directly tied to fears about financial companies' viability and that the Federal Reserve's effort to boost liquidity might have been "too much too soon", RBC Capital Markets Global Futures VP George Gero said. Spot gold was quoted at $867.25/868.75 an ounce, compared with gold's nominal Wednesday close of $862.70.
December silver was up 56.50, or 4.8 percent, at $12.240 an ounce, as silver followed gold's strength. Spot silver was at $12.31/12.36 an ounce, compared with Wednesday's nominal close of $12.00 an ounce.
Nymex October platinum was up $35.70, or 3.3 percent, to $1,122.00 an ounce, following Wednesday's solid gains based on the sharply higher precious metals complex. Spot platinum was at $1,103.00/1,127.00. December palladium was up $6.90, or 3 percent, at $234.00 an ounce. Spot palladium was at $227.00/235.00 an ounce.
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