Commodities: Gold continues to shine on weaker dollar
Thursday saw the fourth straight day of losses for the dollar index (relative dollar strength/weakness against a basket of currencies), down 0.72% to 91.625 by 1740 BST.
This weakness helped gold rally to it's highest level since September 2016 with spot gold up 0.97% to $1,347/oz. and the December contract up to $1,352/oz.
Resistance was seen at $1,350 on the cash price, where sellers could be waiting and buyers may be looking to take some profit, given the precious metal's 3.7% rally since the start of the month.
Regarding recent tensions surrounding North Korea and the safe haven buying, Jonathan Butler at Mitsubishi said, "Geopolitical tensions remain elevated surrounding North Korea, so I'd expect that would keep gold pretty well supported in the short term and in the week ahead."
A view not entirely shared by Samson Li at consultancy GFMS: "I expect some downward pressure on gold starting next week and a rebound in the dollar short-term."
Other precious metals saw spot silver up 0.79% to $18.02/oz, after earlier hitting a day high of $18.14. Platinum was higher on the day to $1,015/oz., while palladium added 1.5% to $957.
Copper prices were softer on Thursday as profit taking was seen in overnight trading and European trading hours saw lacklustre demand as some degree of doubt was cast over the strength of Chinese demand.
"The dollar has been a major tail wind. Chinese demand isn't bad, but it is being overestimated. Look at data on non-tradeable materials like cement, where demand growth is still low," said Liberum analyst Richard Knights. China accounts for nearly half of global copper demand estimated at about 23m tonnes this year.
The base metal traded slightly lower on the day, down 0.03% to $6,909/ tonne.
Oil futures were little changed on Thursday as the latest inventory from the US Energy Information Administration showed a stocks increase of 4.6m barrels, beating forecasts of 4m.
"The impact of Hurricane Harvey is clearly visible in the report. The data scrambles the recent trend of declining crude inventories and further rises are likely in the weeks ahead," said John Kilduff, partner at energy hedge fund Again Capital LLC in New York.
WTI crude for December delivery was relatively flat on the day, down only 0.01% to $50.01/barrel, while the January contract for benchmark brent was up 0.18% to $54.17/barrel.
Hurricane Irma has devastated a number of Caribbean islands on it's way to Florida, expected to make landfall this weekend, prompting a possibility of fuel shortages.
"Demand may continue to be distorted as multiple hurricanes make their way across the Caribbean," said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at futures brokerage OANDA.