Gold closed sharply higher on Friday, holding most of its overnight rally. December gold closed at $742.50, up $37.50 for the session. Prices touched as high as $753.50.
The precious metal surged in after hours trading as the dollar plunged as low as 1.2855 versus the euro, about 5 cents off its highs of the day. The greenback edged mildly higher on Friday in New York as data confirmed that the Eurozone has entered a recession.
With the rally, the precious metal closed up $8.40 for the week. On a long-term basis, however, gold has given back more than $200 over the last five weeks and has lost more than $300 from its record $1,033.90 from March.
Crude oil continued its downward spiral on Friday and lost more than 2% again .Light sweet crude for December delivery closed at $57.04, down $1.20 for the session. Prices touched as low as $56.45 in overnight trading.
In economic news, the Department of Commerce released its report showing that the trade deficit narrowed to $56.5 billion in September from $59.1 billion in August. Economists had been expecting the trade deficit to narrow to $57.0 billion.
Separately, a Labor Department report showed that jobless claims rose to 516,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 484,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to come in nearly unchanged compared to the 481,000 originally reported for the previous week.
