Skip to footer

Gold prices rise ahead of presidential election

Gold prices rose slightly ahead of the US presidential election Monday, gaining $8 to finish at $1683.20 per ounce. Investors are cautious until the race is decided, but low gold prices drew buyers looking for bargains.

|
Truth Leem/Rueters/File
Gold rings are displayed for customers at a jewelry shop in Seoul in this 2011 file photo. Gold prices edged higher Monday, Nov. 5, 2012 as the financial world awaited the US presidential election.
  • By Sandy Shore AP Business writer

| New York

The price of gold rose modestly Monday ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

Gold for December delivery gained $8 to finish at $1,683.20 per ounce. Other commodities were mixed in light volume.

The latest national polls show the race between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney is extremely tight on the day before the election.

Investors are cautious until the race is decided, but gold drew buyers looking for bargains after the price fell $40.30 to end at $1,675.20 an ounce Friday, said Dave Meger, a vice president of metals trading at Vision Financial Markets.

Also looming are a European Central Bank meeting Thursday and the package of tax increases and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff" that will take effect in the U.S. unless Congress acts by Jan. 1.

In other metals contracts for December delivery, silver rose 27.1 cents to finish at $31.128 per ounce, copper fell 1.15 cents to $3.47 per pound, and palladium gained $3.35 to $603 per ounce. January platinum fell $2.20 to $1,542.70 an ounce.

In other trading, the price of wheat rose on persistent questions about global supply heading into the U.S. winter wheat growing season. About 88 percent of the crop has been planted, but conditions remain dry in the key growing states of Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma and parts of Texas.

In addition, it appears supply is tightening in Ukraine and Russia.

"The general consensus, at least, seems to be at some point ... they're going to need to do something to curb exports," Telvent DTN analyst John Sanow said of the two countries.

December wheat rose 1.5 cents to end at $8.66 per bushel, December corn fell 4 cents to $7.355 per bushel and January soybeans fell 23.5 cents to $15.0325 per bushel.

Energy prices were mostly higher.

Benchmark oil rose 79 cents to finish at $85.65 per barrel, heating oil increased 3.55 cents to $2.9829 per gallon, wholesale gasoline rose 4.66 cents to $2.6202 per gallon, and natural gas was unchanged at $3.554 per 1,000 cubic feet.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Gold prices rise ahead of presidential election
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1106/Gold-prices-rise-ahead-of-presidential-election
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe