Gold rebounds over 2pc on robust sentiment, dollar weakness

Gold jumped over 2% to its highest in nearly a week on Monday as a weaker dollar, a pull-back in US Treasury yields along with Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway buying a stake in major gold miner bolstered investor morale.

Spot gold climbed 1.9% to $1,981.41 an ounce by 2:17 p.m. EDT (1817 GMT) and US gold futures settled up 2.5% at $1,998.70. Gold last week registered its biggest decline since March as investors reassessed positions after bullion retreated sharply from a record peak of $2,072.50 scaled on Aug. 7.

"The sharp pullback in prices and the price action that has followed has revealed quite a bit about the underlying extent of speculative appetite for precious metals," said Daniel Ghali, commodity strategist at TD Securities, adding that the fact Warren Buffett has now "embraced gold" is helping sentiment.

A regulatory filing on Friday disclosed Berkshire Hathaway's new 20.9 million share investment in one of the world's largest mining companies, Barrick Gold Corp.

"Recognizing that he has bought a stock and not gold commodity itself, it does provide a compelling narrative for those that were looking to buy gold and perhaps remained on the sidelines, but the positive sentiment now is helping them pull the trigger," Ghali added.

Also helping gold, the dollar fell to a more than one-week low, benchmark 10-year US Treasury note yields eased and the New York Fed's Empire State Manufacturing Survey index dropped to 3.7.

Investors now await the minutes from the US Federal Reserve's last policy meeting on Wednesday.

"The market expects the Fed to be very supportive, we'll be above $2,000 per ounce before Fed minutes, and north of $2,250 by the end of year," said Bob Haberkorn, senior market strategist at RJO Futures.

Elsewhere, silver rose 3.7% to $27.37 an ounce, platinum gained 1.5% to $950.03 and palladium jumped 4.1% to $2,194.55.