Gold gains for eighth session in a row

Prices witness healthy weekly gains too

Bullion prices ended higher on Friday, 14 February 2014. Gold futures rose Friday for an eighth session in a row and scored a roughly 4.4% gain for the week, fueled by a combination of increased physical demand and economic jitters.

April gold futures added $18.50, or 1.4%, to settle at $1,318.60 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The most-active gold contract saw a 4.4% gain on the week.

March silver climbed $1.03, or 5%, to end at $21.42 an ounce. Prices closed at the highest since early November, up 7.5% for the week.

Demand for physical gold from inflows into the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund rose this week, with holdings about 1.2% higher as of Thursday from last Friday's level.

Among economic data expected on Friday at Wall Street, export prices, excluding agriculture, ticked up 0.2% in January after increasing 0.3% in the prior reading. Excluding oil, import prices rose 0.3%, which follows last month's downtick of 0.1%.

Industrial production declined 0.3% in January after increasing 0.3% in December while the consensus expected an increase of 0.3%. Also, the preliminary reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for February was unchanged at 81.2 while the consensus expected the index to fall to 80.2. The Current Conditions Index weakened slightly, falling from 96.8 in January to 94.0. This was offset by an increase in the Expectations Index from 71.2 to 73.0 in February. Bond and equity markets will be closed on Monday, 17 February 2014 for Presidents' Day.

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