Gold zooms to all-time high

Silver and copper move up in tandem

Domestic gold prices - spot and futures "" touched an all-time high in the opening session, following a $10 an ounce rally in overseas spot prices. The overseas rally was due to fear of high inflation and expectation of good festive demand from India.

Standard gold opened at Rs 6,815 per 10 grams (ex-Mumbai) against the previous close of Rs 6,740. Pure gold opened at Rs 6,850 per 10 gm (ex-Mumbai) against the previous close of Rs 6,775.

The earlier record highs of standard and pure gold were Rs 6,780 and Rs 6,815 (per 10 gm) respectively.

On Thursday, overseas spot gold rallied $10 to $474 per ounce. On the same day, the New York Mercantile Exchange's (NYMEX) Commodity exchange division December gold futures rallied $5.7 to $475 per ounce, following heavy investment buying as the greenback slipped against the euro.

The dollar slip against the euro was largely on hope of possible short-term interest rate hike, which the Bank of England left unchanged.

Interestingly, the rise in yellow metal prices was despite a sharp pullback in crude prices. On Thursday, NYMEX October crude oil ended the day at $61.36 a barrel, down from the opening at $62.72.

V Sivaramakrishnan, an analyst with Karvy Commodities, said, "The continued remarks about inflation concerns by the (US) Federal Reserve members seem to be compelling traders to believe that gold can be a good hedge against inflation."

Further, traders' hearsay about a threat of terrorist attack in a New York subway pulled up prices, but most traders rubbished it.

Domestic ready silver also opened the day at a high of Rs 11,265 per kilogram against the previous close of Rs 11,135 on good buying. The rise was led by overseas rally in silver prices, due to copper prices touching an all-time high, traders and analysts said.

On Thursday, the London Metal Exchange copper three-month futures touched an intra-day high of $3,888 a tonne, as low inventories led to heavy fund buying on expectation of supply shortage vis-a-vis demand. Cash copper prices also breached the psychological mark of $4,000 a tonne and ended the day at $4,039.