Precious metals ended stronger across the board Monday as gold futures gained on a slumping dollar and rising crude oil, platinum futures hit a record high on producer news and silver and palladium reached contract highs.
Comex April gold rose $4.40, or nearly 0.5%, to settle at $926.70 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
March silver rose 36 cents, or more than 2.1%, to settle at $17.47 an ounce after hitting the contract's high of $17.595.
Meanwhile, Nymex platinum futures set an all-time record and palladium futures on the exchange hit a contract high on "continued bad news out of South Africa".
April platinum rose $55.40 to settle at $1,939.40 after hitting an all-time high of $1,949 an ounce. Meanwhile, March palladium settled $2.55 higher at $443.40 an ounce after hitting a contract high of $448.50 overnight.
Anglo Platinum Ltd. (AMS.JO), the world's largest platinum producer, Monday said production of the metal would decline for a second year in 2008 as a power shortage in South Africa added to safety-related problems that upset output last year.
The Johannesburg-based company produced 2.47 million ounces of refined platinum last year, a 12% decrease from 2006 due largely to shutdowns of operations in South Africa following a spate of fatalities.
The company said refined production for 2008 would be about 2.4 million ounces, with about 30,000 ounces already lost to power cuts and a further 120,000 ounces expected to be squeezed by reduced power supplies.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment