Demand for gold remained buoyant, but not strong enough to put the yellow metal above the US$1,300/oz level it touched again earlier in today’s session.
Concerns over the pace of the economic recovery were fuelled by last week’s comments from the Federal Reserve, which left the door open for more quantitative easing to bolster the slowing US recovery.
Gold is seen as one of the main safe haven assets and usually goes up when investor confidence wanes and equities head south.
The UK's FTSE 100 and futures for the main US stock market indexes were flat today.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) has recently projected gold to hit US$1,300/oz within six months. This happened much sooner as gold futures and then spot prices reached that mark for the first time on Friday.
This prompted Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) to revisit its forecast for 2011, upping it to US$1,400/oz.
Silver, which has recently hit 30 year highs, continued surging, even while other precious metals made little headway.
Gold was steady at US$1,298/oz. Silver advanced to US$21.56/oz, while platinum slid to US$1,636/oz.
Gold miner Randgold Resources (LON:RRS) and peer African Barrick Gold (LON:ABG) posted small gains, while platinum producer Lonmin (LON:LMI) and silver miner Fresnillo (LON:FRES) declined marginally.
Specialty chemicals firm Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) was unmoved.
Midcaps did slightly better. Aquarius Platinum (LON:AQP) climbed 1.1%, while silver producer Hochschild Mining (LON:HOC) and gold miner Petropavlovsk (LON:POG) added less than 1%.
Africa operating gold producer Goldplat (LON:GDP) led the juniors, rallying 23%. Diversified mining investment company Mercator Gold (LON:MCR) also did very well, surging 11.5%. Australia operating mining exploration company GGG Resources (LON:GGG) and the only publicly listed gold mining company with primary operations inside the Republic of Uzbekistan, Oxus Gold (LON:OXS), followed, advancing 10.5%.
Copper and gold focused explorer and developer EMED Mining (LON:EMED) moved up 7%. Mineral exploration and development company focussed on gold and copper deposits in Kazakhstan Frontier Mining (LON:FML) and Fiji operating gold miner Vatukoula Gold Mines (LON:VGM) joined the party with gains of 5%.