Gold jumped to an all-time high above $1,450 an ounce on Tuesday, as peak crude and corn prices fanned inflation fears and a downgrade of Portugal's credit rating drew attention to eurozone problems. Bullion rose more than 1 percent, its biggest gain in more than a month of range-bound trading. Silver soared to a 31-year peak. Both drew support from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's comments late on Monday suggesting he was committed to completing a $600 billion stimulus program as scheduled in June.
Spot gold gained 1.1 percent to $1,452.31 an ounce at 3:16 am EDT (1916 GMT), off the session high, a record $1,455.06 an ounce. US gold futures for June delivery settled up 1.4 percent at $1,452.50, with trading volume approaching 160,000 lots, about one-fourth below the 30-day average but sharply higher than that of Monday's. Silver gained 1.8 percent to $39.12 an ounce, after hitting a session high of $39.25. That was the highest since the Hunt Brothers cornered the market in the early 1980s, when silver briefly hit a record of just below $50 an ounce.
Silver outperformed gold in the first quarter, rising 22 percent while gold rose 0.7 percent. The gold:silver ratio, which shows how many silver ounces are needed to buy an ounce of gold, fell to a 28-year low at 37.3. For platinum group metals, platinum rose 0.4 percent to $1,786.99 an ounce, while palladium also gained 0.9 percent to $786.22.