Gold was little changed on Monday after rising to within $10 of its record high, and silver and palladium hit multi-year peaks, driven by pent-up demand on the first trading day of 2011. Bullion's safe-haven demand was weakened after US data showed manufacturing grew for a 17th straight month in December, extending a recent run of encouraging economic data and suggesting US growth could accelerate further in 2011.
"The stock market is doing very well, and with the dollar still relatively weak, investors tried to run the gold but they just failed," said Bruce Dunn, vice president of trading at bullion dealer Auramet. Spot gold inched down less than 0.1 percent to $1,419.90 an ounce at 12:14 pm EST (1714 GMT). US gold futures for February delivery fell $1.90 an ounce to $1,419.50. Volume was lower than usual with the London market still on holiday.
Earlier in the session, gold rose to a peak of $1,423.57 an ounce, its highest since early December, less than $10 below a record of $1,430.95 set on December 7. "The fundamentals are driving the price, and those fundamentals remain fear-driven," said Pradeep Unni, a senior analyst at Richcomm Global Services in Dubai.
Among other precious metals, silver hit its highest since 1980 at $31.22 an ounce as investors continued to pick up the metal as a cheaper proxy for gold. It rose 0.5 percent to $31.02 an ounce. Platinum gained 0.6 percent to $1,778.49 an ounce, and palladium climbed 0.1 percent tot $800.60, having earlier touched its highest since March 2001 at $805.50 an ounce. Palladium and silver were among the best-performing precious metals last year, up 97 percent and 83 percent respectively.
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