The price of gold moved slightly higher Thursday as traders looked for safe havens after stocks plummeted on Wall Street and oil fell to three-year lows.
Gold for December delivery rose $12.70, or 1.7%, to end at $748.70 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It climbed to $753.00 earlier in the day.
Crude for December closed down $4.00 to settle at $49.62 a barrel, the lowest settlement in more than three years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 400 points, ending below 7,600. The economic news was dire, leaving investors with little confidence that the economy can avoid a deep, prolonged recession.
Initial claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly increased in the week ended November 15th, according to a report released by the Department of Labor on Thursday, with the increase lifting jobless claims to a sixteen-year high.
The report showed that jobless claims rose to 542,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 515,000. With the increase, jobless claims rose to their highest level since spiking to 564,000 in July of 1992.
Meanwhile, activity in the mid-Atlantic region's manufacturing sector unexpectedly contracted at an accelerated pace in the month of November, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia on Thursday.
The Philly Fed said that its index of activity in the sector fell to a negative 39.3 in November from a negative 37.5 in October, with a negative reading indicating a contraction. With the decrease, the index fell to its lowest reading since October of 1990.
