Gold climbs on rising demand

22 Nov, 2024

LONDON: Spot gold prices rose for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, helped by safe-haven demand and subdued stock markets after AI bellwether Nvidia’s revenue growth forecast failed to excite investors.

Spot gold was up 0.6% at $2,665.31 per ounce at 1356 GMT. Bullion is up 4% so far this week, heading for its first week of gains in four. “The safe-haven pressure is coming more from falling stocks after Nvidia disappointed the Street than from Ukraine’s fight against Russia,” said Adrian Ash, head of research at online marketplace BullionVault.

Signs of rising geopolitical risks, which usually support demand for gold, increased after Ukraine fired US and British missiles at targets inside Russia this week and said on Thursday that Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile in an attack on an Ukrainian city.

However, the impact is somewhat limited as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been going on for more than 1,000 days, even though Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike.

“If gold prices jumped every time Putin rattled his nuclear arsenal at the West, we would have crossed $10,000 (per ounce) long ago, never mind the $3,000 level now forecast for 2025 by some Wall Street pundits,” Ash said. Spot gold prices hit a record high of $2,790.15 per troy ounce on Oct. 31 and then fell to a two-month low of $2,536.71 by mid-November, reacting to the Republicans’ clean sweep in the US Nov. 5 election.

The recovery since then was due to uncertainty over US President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet, whether he would implement the policies he has proposed, and the country’s interest rates outlook, with Thursday’s data showing that US jobless claims unexpectedly fell last week.

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