On Thursday, June gold futures closed at $1,293.70, up 9.10 (0.71%). This came on increasing geopolitical tensions and options-related buying, reported Reuters.?
Gold jumped as high as 1.1 percent to almost $1,300 per ounce in the morning (around 10 a.m EDT) as U.S. gold futures added 20,000-plus lots within 10 minutes as Russia launched?army drills near the Ukraine border in response to Ukrainian forces killing pro-Moscow rebels. Fears rose on a possible invasion.?
Thursday’s COMEX expiration for May options was another factor with open interest coming in puts and calls for a $1300 strike price.?
Tom Power, senior?commodity?broker at RJO?Futures, said via Reuters,?”Traders are eyeing that $1,300 mark, which offers some resistance to the rally. You are going to get a lot of traders dancing around that number.”
Earlier in the trading day, spot gold had dropped to $1,268.24–a 2 1/2 month low–from stronger equities and weaker technicals.?
In other precious metals trading activity for Thursday,?silver rose 1.1 percent to $19.62 an ounce after falling early in the day to almost a five-month low of $18.91.?
Platinum increased 0.8 percent to $1,408.25 an ounce and palladium rose 2.1 percent to $799.50 an ounce.?