Gold Futures Trade Near Two-Month High on Demand as Haven Asset

By Feiwen Rong

Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Gold futures traded near the highest in two months after the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a $700 billion bailout bill for the U.S. banking system, stoking concern of a worsening credit crisis.

Markets plunged as the House rejected the bill by a vote of 228 to 205 yesterday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell the most ever, and the MSCI World Index of 23 developed markets slid 6.9 percent, the biggest loss in 21 years.

``Gold could go a lot higher as more safe-haven asset buying comes into the market,'' Charles Dowsett, head of structuring and trading of precious metals at ABN Amro Holding NV, said today by phone from Sydney.

December-delivery gold advanced 1.7 percent to $910 an ounce in after-hours electronic trading on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange at 2:30 p.m. in Singapore. Gold for immediate delivery rallied to $925.10 an ounce yesterday, the highest since July 31, and traded at $905.05 an ounce. Silver for immediate delivery was little changed at $13.125 an ounce.

Newcrest Mining Ltd., Australia's largest gold miner, rose as much as 5.7 percent to A$29.64 in Sydney trading.

The dollar was little changed at 104.30 against the Japanese yen at 2:31 p.m. in Singapore, after dropping for past two days.

Euro-Dollar

The dollar climbed for the second day against the euro to $1.4394 at 2:32 p.m. in Singapore after Belgium and France governments pledged to inject 6.4 billion euros into Dexia SA, the world's largest lender to local governments.

Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg also gave an 11.2 billion euro ($16.1 billion) lifeline yesterday to Fortis Bank, the largest Belgian financial-services company.

``We could have seen a much more explosive move in gold, had the U.S. dollar weakened combined with the sell-off in the equities market,'' Toby Hassall, analyst at Commodity Warrants Australia, said by phone from Sydney.

Gains in gold may be limited in the near term because ``there maybe a bit of profit-taking and liquidation of long positions just to cover the cash costs'' at the end of the quarter, said Dowsett. ``But overall we expect gold to test $950 an ounce.''

Exchange-traded funds held a record 1,039.68 metric tons of gold bullion, reflecting concern about the U.S. financial system, the Financial Times reported on Sept. 24. Investors' bullion assets have almost doubled in the two years to this month, the newspaper said, citing the World Gold Council.

Gold for August delivery jumped 1.6 percent to 3,023 yen a gram ($901) an ounce on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange at the 2:34 p.m. local time break.

To contact the reporter on this story: Feiwen Rong in Singapore at frong2@bloomberg.net