Gold News & Info

Source: MarketWatch

WASHINGTON By Mike Mayna— Metals prices rallied Tuesday, gaining broadly as gold moved up more than $5 an ounce.

Mining stocks also recovered from their bout of recent weakness.

Silver made the biggest gains on a percentage basis on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reflecting what one trader called a "catchup" recovery putting it more in line with the rest of the sector.

The benchmark gold contract moved easily past the $430 mark, rising as the U.S. dollar came under pressure.

Gold for June delivery rose $5.50 in recent Nymex dealings to $434.50 an ounce, its highest level in more than three weeks.

Meanwhile, the marquee economic report of the day was U.S. producer price data for March, which showed core wholesale-level inflation well contained.

The PPI report did little to stir metals traders. If inflation had come in worse than expected, financial markets would have read that to mean a more aggressive pattern of U.S. interest-rate hikes is in the offing, something that would undermine gold while supporting the dollar.

Also on Nymex, May silver rose 2.6%, adding 18.5 cents to $7.23 an ounce.

May copper, having turned higher halfway through Monday's session, advanced 2.1 cents to $1.466 a pound. July platinum rose to $867 an ounce, up $5.50, while June palladium moved $1.20 higher to $201.60 an ounce.

According to the latest data compiled by Nymex, silver inventories stood at 103.52 million troy ounces as of the close of business Monday, up 988,505 troy ounces from the previous day. Gold fell 24,025 troy ounces to 5.93 million troy ounces, while copper inventories dropped another 1,456 short tons to stand at 34,142 short tons.

On the equities side, indexes tracking the mining sector built up bullish momentum.

The Philadelphia Gold/Silver Index ($XAU: news, chart, profile) stood lately at 89.84 points, up 2.2%, while the CBOE Gold Index ($GOX: news, chart, profile) tacked on 2.5% to 78.29 and the Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI: news, chart, profile) rose 3.1% to 191.41.

A standout was Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX: news, chart, profile) , shares of which rose 2.3% to $36.01.

Earlier, the company reported a first-quarter net profit of $130.4 million, or 70 cents a share, a reversal from the year-ago period and higher than Wall Street's consensus forecast.

Freeport-McMoRan said it expects to generate "significant cash flows," setting the stage for debt paydowns, dividends and share buybacks.