Gold Prices Close Higher as Stocks Surge

Gold prices rose Thursday alongside equities as investors were able to stop selling gold to raise cash.

Gold for December delivery closed up $11.60 at $1,653.20 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold price has traded as high as $1,656.80 and as low as $1,633.20 an ounce, while the spot gold price was up $8.40, according to Kitco's gold index.

Silver prices rose $1.65 to settle at $32 an ounce while the U.S. dollar index was losing 0.5% at $78.60.

There's no doubt gold moving alongside stocks was a puzzlement for many experts as the two typically have an inverse relationship.

"Gold's unusual behavior at present can be explained by events on the futures market," wrote Commerzbank in a note. When stocks rally, investors have less need to liquidate assets like gold. But Commerzbank said there are still a lot of speculative long positions in the gold market, which investors might sell if prices rise. As profit-taking weighs on gold, then physical buyers will re-enter the market.

"This pattern is likely to mean the price of gold fluctuating for quite some time within a broad sideways range before a new upturn begins," Commerzbank said.

A new trend might be hard to find this week with investors focusing on the death of Apple(AAPL) co-founder, Steve Jobs, as well as two interest rate decisions from the European Central Bank and Bank of England Thursday and Friday's reading on employment in the U.S.

Briefing.com expects the private sector to have added 90,000 jobs in September after adding only 17,000 in August. A better reading could boost equities and help markets rally, which might push gold higher as there is less need to sell. Of course, the opposite could be true as well -- a positive jobs number could give investors less of a reason to own the safe haven.

A bad number, on the flip side, could either help gold shine! as a sa fe haven or could prompt more forced liquidation.

Jeff Clark, Casey Research's senior precious metals analyst, said, "When the market falls I think that investors will seek out liquidity and they will use an easily tradeable gold position to do that."

But Clark argued that this volatile and confusing time for gold is really a tiny blip on its long-term trajectory.

"Debt is still crushing most of the developed world .... [and] real interest rates are still negative," he said. The real interest rate is the interest rate minus the inflation rate.

The Bank of England left interest rates unchanged at 0.5% and will raise its asset purchase program by 75 billion pounds to 275 billion pounds to stave off a possible recession as the country only grew 0.6% in the second quarter.

The European Central Bank left rates at 1.5% to fight inflation, now at 3%, as the recent blowup of the sovereign debt crisis makes it hard for the ECB to constrict the money supply even further. Some experts, however, had been anticipating a possible rate cut or at least hints of one as this was Jean-Claude Trichet's last meeting as president.

Commerzbank still thinks the ECB will cut rates to 1.25% by the end of the year and again next spring to 1%.

"The central bank will probably make a sharp downward revision to its forecast for next year's economic growth -- down 1.3% -- in the coming weeks," Commerzbank said.

"Governments show little sign of training their ways from printing money to saving, investing and being more conservative," argued Clark. "When the currency is being treated like that ... gold's long-term strength is really as a long-term currency."

Clark said that although gold fell 10% in September, it wasn't a complete freakout by investors.

"A freakout would take gold to $800 [like] in 2008 [when] gold lost a third of its value," he said. Clark thinks this price dip in gold is a good buying opportunity b! ut warns that investors shouldn't go all in just in case prices fall further.

The one wild card for gold is if the European Union can come up with a decisive plan to recapitalize European banks, so that even if Greece does default the financial system will be able to survive. If that happens, then gold's role as a safe haven might dissipate, but although the sentiment is there among leaders there has been little agreement on a plan of action.

Gold mining stocks were mostly rising Thursday along with the broader equity market. Kinross Gold(KGC) was adding 2.1% to $14.07 while Yamana Gold(AUY) was up 2.48% at $14.07. Other gold stocks, Agnico-Eagle(AEM) and Eldorado Gold(EGO) were trading at $59.24 and $17.05, respectively.

-- New York.

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