Gold Prices End Week up 3.9%, Other Precious Metals Gain

Gold prices concluded a stellar week Friday with a modest gain as prospects of fresh support for weak Eurozone members and short covering offset profit taking.

Rumors that the European Central Bank may funnel money to the International Monetary Fund as a way to help weak Eurozone members lifted the euro and stocks in both the U.S. and Europe.

Coming on the heels of the mid-week announcement by top central banks that they will ease dollar access for Eurozone banks, the development lifted stocks, with European equity indexes up around one percent and U.S. stock indexes also up in later afternoon trading. The euro also rose, which weighed on the dollar, thus benefitting gold.

The yellow metal may also have attracted buyers who want to prepare their portfolios for another round of money printing by the Federal Reserve. Short covering ahead of the weekend also support prices.

But profit taking -- after a week in which gold prices rose 3.9 percent -- trimmed early gains, though not optimism about more gold price gains next week.

I was disappointed the market didn't hold the $1,760 level, said Mike Daly, gold specialist in PFGBEST's research division. Technically we took out some resistance today but then we ran into long covering ahead of the weekend.

One of the biggest things we have to look forward to is resistance around the $1,804 area. If we can take that out, there's a good chance we'll make all-time highs, Daly said.

Gold for February delivery gained $11.50 to $1,751.30, while gold for immediate delivery added $3.90 to $1,747.68.

Silver for March delivery slipped seven cents to $32.69, while silver for immediate delivery was off 16 cents to $32.58.

For the week, silver gained 5.4 percent, platinum rose 1.6 percent and palladium rocketed up 10.5 percent.