Gold futures closed slightly higher Wednesday in the shortened pre-holiday session amid mixed trading in the U.S. dollar. Gold for February delivery ended up $9.90, or 1.2%, at $848 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The dollar remained slightly lower against the euro on Wednesday after reports on joblessness and consumer spending pointed to further weakness in the U.S. economy. But the dollar index , which tracks the value of the greenback against a basket of other major currencies, was flat at 81.15. See Currencies. Gold prices and the dollar tend to move in the opposite direction. The nearby December contract, which expires Dec. 29, also moved higher Wednesday to close at $847.10 an ounce. Open interest, or the number of outstanding contracts for December delivery, stood at 369 as of Wednesday, or 36,900 ounces, according to Comex data. Gold inventories held by Comex for futures delivery stood at 2,832,883 ounces as of Tuesday, down 100 ounces from a day ago, according to the latest data from the exchange. In other metals trading, March silver futures rose 0.9% to $10.35 an ounce. January platinum gained 1.5% to $859.40 an ounce, and March palladium rose slightly to $174.90 an ounce. March copper fell 0.5% to $1.274 a pound. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the largest exchange-traded gold fund, stood at 775.33 tons Tuesday, unchanged from a day ago and up 20 tons from a month ago, according to the latest data from the fund. The SPDR Gold Trust rose 1% to $83.46. The iShares Gold Trust exchange-traded fund added 0.9% to $83.50, while the iShares Silver Trust ETF ) gained 1.2% to $10.28. The Amex Gold Bugs Index , which tracks the share prices of major gold companies, slid 0.1% to 275.97. The Market Vectors-Gold Miners ETF slid 0.5% to $30.59.

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