Gold rallies to hit fresh highs, silver also soars

Silver also continued its relentless surge tracking the yellow metal and re-captured the Rs 62,000 per kg level on heavy speculative buying.

Standard gold (99.5 purity) climbed up by Rs 220 to end at Rs 31,700 per 10 gm from Wednesday's closing level of Rs 31,480.

Pure gold (99.9 purity) went up by Rs 230 to conclude at Rs 31,850 per 10 gm from Rs 31,620.

Silver ready (.999 fineness) shot up by a hefty Rs 1,250 per kg to finish at Rs 62,575 from Rs 61,325 yesterday.

In Europe, gold jumped to six-month high ahead of European Central Bank meeting amidst increasing optimism over bank's plans to tackle the debt crisis.

Spot gold was bid higher at USD 1,709.54 an ounce in early trade. Silver, too, was bid higher at USD 32.94 an ounce.