Investing.com - Gold prices hit a fresh one-month high on Friday in holiday-thinned trading and was on track for its best annual gains since 2010 as weakness in the dollar supported the precious metal.
Comex gold futures rose 0.12% to $1,298.70 a troy ounce by 4:18AM ET (9:18GMT) Friday, just off its intraday high of $1,299.00 which was its highest level since November 29.
Futures were on the rise for a fourth straight session and were on track for weakly gains of around 1.6% and were up nearly 11% for all of 2017.
Gold continued to benefit from recent weakness in the dollar on Friday in what many observers are suggesting is a case of selling off on the official announcement that U.S. President Donald Trump signed off on the tax overhaul.
A weaker greenback makes the precious metal more affordable for holders of foreign currency.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was last down 0.28% to 92.08, levels not seen since the end of September.
Despite Trump finally signing off on the long-anticipated tax reform in what was the first major legislative achievement of his presidency and the gradual path of monetary policy tightening from the Federal Reserve throughout 2017, the dollar index heads towards the end of the year with annual losses of 0.9%.
Gold has also benefitted in 2017 from investors piling into the safe-haven asset in the face of continuous geopolitical tension. North Korea has been at the forefront of those worries as the U.S., China, North Korea and Japan all work to curb Pyonyang’s nuclear program.
Elsewhere in metals trading, silver fell 0.11% at $16.905 a troy ounce, platinum gained 0.29% at $934.20 a troy ounce, palladium traded down 0.32% to $1,060.00 a troy ounce, while copper lost 0.29% to $3.299.00 a pound.