Gold surged 2.5 percent on Thursday, its biggest daily rise since June, as physical buyers kept scooping up the metal at prices viewed as a bargain after bullion hit a two-year low on April 15. Silver rallied 5 percent during the session, and platinum group metals gained 2 percent.
Bullion has now retraced about half of its losses after it fell a combined $225 an ounce over two days in April. "It was due for a bounce after that devastating move earlier in the month," said Sean McGillivray, head of asset allocation at Great Pacific Wealth Management. During the session, spot gold hit a 10-day high of $1,468.60 an ounce. It was at $1,465.75 an ounce by 2:55 pm EDT (1955 GMT), up 2.4 percent for the session and around 11 percent above a two-year low of $1,321.35 hit last week.
US gold for June delivery settled up $38.30 at $1,462 an ounce, with trading volume on track to finish around 20 percent below its 30-day average, preliminary Reuters data showed. Silver rose 5.1 percent to $24.27 an ounce. Among platinum group metals, platinum gained 2.8 percent at $1,465.50 an ounce and palladium was up 2 percent to $678.75 an ounce.