Gold prices slumped to fresh five-year lows on Friday, with the precious metal posting its sixth consecutive weekly loss, despite the rise in tensions in the Middle East with the shooting down of a Russian jet by Turkey.
The strengthening US dollar drove the selling as investors focused on this week’s expected expansion of its quantitative easing program by the European Central Bank and then an expected strong US jobs report for last month – both of which will push the euro lower and the greenback higher.
The Aussie dollar ended at 71.93 on Saturday.
Gold futures for December delivery settled down $US13.80, or 1.3% at $US1,056.20 an ounce on Comex in New York – down $US13 an ounce, or around 1.8% over the week.
Earlier, the price fell to $US1,051.60, the lowest since February 2010.
But copper prices finished steady on the week at just over $US2.055 a pound on Comex. That was despite a big sell-off on Monday.
In London LME metals were weak on Friday. Nickel dropped 3.6%, zinc dropped 2.9% and copper lost 0.3%.
