Bullions soar

Gold futures climb to log a fourth straight session of gains

Bullion prices ended the U.S. day session higher on Wednesday, 14 October 2015 and gold scored a 3.5-month high. Gold futures climbed Wednesday to log a fourth straight session of gains, as a weaker U.S. dollar helped prices finish at their highest level in almost four months.

Gold for December delivery gained $14.40, or 1.2%, to settle at $1,179.80 an ounce on Comex.

Meanwhile, December silver tacked on 21 cents, or 1.3%, to $16.117 an ounce.

The U.S. dollar index declined against its main rivals on Wednesday as disappointing economic data lifted expectations that the Fed would continue to delay an interest-rate hike. In September, U.S. retail sales barely rose and the producer-price index fell by a bigger-than-expected 0.5%. August business inventories were unchanged.

The key data points in the U.S. Wednesday were the retail sales report for September and the Fed's beige bookboth of which fell into the dovish U.S. monetary policy camp. Retail sales came in at up 0.1%. The overall sales figure was expected to be up 0.2% versus up 0.2% in August. Revisions to the previous months and other internals of the retail sales report were also disappointing. The Fed's beige book, released in the afternoon, showed a weakening U.S. manufacturing sector. The negative readings provide further ammunition for the monetary policy doves, who want the Federal Reserve to hold off on raising interest rates until next year, at the earliest.

There were also reports overnight that consumer demand for gold in China has seen a significant increase lately.

World stock markets were mostly weaker on Wednesday, following some more downbeat economic news coming out of China, the world's second-largest economy and the world's leading raw commodity importer. China's consumer price index rose 1.6% in September, year-on-year, compared to a rise of 2.0% in August. This data falls into the camp of market watchers that are worried about worldwide price deflation.

There was also disappointing economic news coming out of the European Union on Wednesday. Industrial output in the Euro zone declined by 0.5% in August from July, and was up 0.9%, year-on-year. The numbers were in line with market expectations.

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