Americas Gold and Silver Corp (USA)

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Gold Gains to All-Time High as Investors Seek an Alternative to Currencies
By Claudia Carpenter - Dec 7, 2010 3:29 AM PT

Gold climbed to records in New York and London on investor demand for an alternative investment to currencies. Silver advanced to a 30-year high. Gold rallied as the dollar fell to a three-week low against the yen after President Barack Obama said he would agree to sustain tax cuts, boosting demand for riskier assets. Gold traded in Japanese yen rose to the highest price since 1983. Precious metals gained this year as Europe’s debts weakened paper money.

“With all the concern going on about the U.S., and all the debt issues in Europe, there’s no currency that anybody really wants to hold,” said Connor Noonan, an analyst at Castlestone Management Ltd. in London. “What we used to see in this kind of situation was safe-haven buying in dollars and now that’s turning into safe-haven buying of gold.”

Gold for immediate delivery climbed to the record $1,428.55 an ounce and was up $3.10, or 0.2 percent, at $1,426.85 an ounce by 11:08 a.m. in London. The metal for February delivery jumped $11.70, or 0.8 percent, to $1,427.80 an ounce on the Comex in New York.

Assets of gold in exchange-traded products rose 0.75 metric ton to 2,099.15 tons yesterday as prices climbed to an all-time high, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from 10 providers. Gold prices have jumped 30 percent this year after governments spent trillions of dollars and kept interest rates low to bolster economies after the worst global recession since World War II.

Debt Crisis

“The market is all about the European debt crisis and a third round of quantitative easing in the U.S.,” Wallace Ng, executive director of commodities at ABN Amro Bank NV in Hong King, said today by phone. “Gold is now driven by investment demand” and purchases from jewelers and physical users particularly from India have been muted, he said.

Ng forecast investors would sell the metal at near-record levels, and pegged gold’s support for the week at $1,400.

Silver for immediate delivery advanced 23 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $30.3775 after earlier today rising to $30.4525, the highest price since March 10, 1980.

Palladium climbed $9.33, or 1.2 percent, to $767.08 an ounce and platinum rose 0.3 percent at $1,726.20 an ounce.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-07/gold-falls-as-gain-to-record-prompts-sales-silver-drops-from-30-year-high.html