NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures rose Friday in light trading following the Thanksgiving Day holiday, heading for a fourth straight week of gains and poised for their biggest monthly gain in nine years.
Gold for December delivery rose $7, or 0.9%, at $815.50 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It's heading for a weekly gain of nearly 3%. In the month, gold has risen 14% so far, the biggest percentage gain since September 1999.
Gold rose "on safe haven demand and on the likelihood of further dollar declines with further reductions in U.S. and international interest rates," said Mark O'Byrne, executive director at Gold and Silver Investments.
In gold spot trading, the London gold-fixing price -- used as a benchmark for gold for immediate delivery -- stood at $813.50 an ounce Friday morning, down 50 cents from Thursday afternoon.
Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest gold exchange-traded fund, stood at 755.06 tons on Tuesday, unchanged for a third day, according to the latest data from the fund. The SPDR Gold Trust was flat at $80.35.
In other metals, December silver fell 0.5% to $10.17 an ounce. December palladium dropped 0.7% to $189 an ounce and January platinum rose 1.6% to $884 an ounce.
December copper fell 3.1% to $1.617 a pound.
On the equities side, the Amex Gold Bugs Index , which tracks the share prices of major gold companies, lost 1.2% to 240.60.
The iShares Gold Trust exchange-traded fund slid 0.1% to $80.46, while the iShares Silver Trust ETF ) fell 0.6% to $10.13. The Market Vectors-Gold Miners ETF lost 0.1% to $26.08.
