Investing.com – Gold returned to the key bullish perch of $1,500 an ounce on Christmas Eve as investors continued to seek out the yellow metal as an insurance to a potential Wall Street slide in early 2020.
Gold futures for February delivery on New York’s COMEX settled up $16.10, or 1.1%, at $1,504.80 per ounce. It earlier hit an 11-day high at $1,489.75. The last time gold futures traded above $1,500 was on Nov. 5.
Spot gold, which tracks live trades in bullion, was up $14.35, or 1%, at $1,499.62 by 1:17 PM ET (18:17 GMT), after a seven-week high of $1,500.56 earlier.
Stocks on Wall Street have had one of their strongest and most prolonged bull runs this year on optimism over a pending U.S.-China trade deal as well as runaway U.S. jobs growth and other strong data.
Some analysts caution that the market’s upside is not infinite and that a correction is likely in the first quarter, making gold a good candidate to hedge in.
The $1,500 level is seen as make-or-break for gold’s continued rally in 2020. That the yellow metal could return to that level by Christmas – despite the Federal Reserve ending, earlier this month, rate cuts reintroduced after a four-year hiatus – is indicative of gold’s rock-solid fundamentals, say precious-metals analysts.
Spot gold is up nearly 17% for 2019 while gold futures have risen almost 15%.